According to the Hérault prefecture, “the Montpellier ultras have not forgiven the ‘last minute defection’” of Andy Delort, transferred from MHSC to OGC Nice this season. It is for this, and also because of the “historic and violent rivalry” which exists between the two clubs, that it has decided to prohibit the movement of Nice supporters on Saturday to Montpellier.
The two teams, currently 2nd and 11th in the Ligue 1 championship, must meet there at 5 p.m. on behalf of the 28th day of the competition. And it will be “prohibited for anyone claiming to be a supporter of OGC Nice or behaving as such to access the Mosson stadium and to drive or park on the public road” in certain sectors, details a prefectural decree.
“In contradiction to all sportsmanship”
The State services list a series of eight incidents to justify this choice and testify to “the historic and violent rivalry that exists between the supporters of the clubs of MHSC and OGC Nice, in contradiction with all sportsmanship”. They mention in particular the date of January 25, 2014. On that day, “about 120 supporters of OGC Nice invested the city center” of Montpellier and “some of them started a fight sensitive city.
The prefecture also believes that “the association Populaire Sud de Nice” could have “take advantage of this trip to the Hérault to wash [un] clash”. In July 2021, she recalls, five ultras from OGC Nice had been “taken to task and severely beaten in a campsite in Carnon”, a seaside resort in Hérault.
The climate would therefore be explosive and all the more so since “the surprise departure of the player from the MHSC team, Andy Delort, for OGC Nice”, still points out the prefecture, according to whom this transfer “was not accepted by the Montpellier ultras”.