Problems on the field, problems off the field. AS Saint-Etienne is having a complicated season, even if it still aims to move up to Ligue 1. But, this Monday, no problem with finishing or defensive passivity. It is on the legal ground that the Greens experienced a new defeat. The Saint-Etienne industrial tribunal judged the termination of Stéphane Ruffier’s employment contract for “serious misconduct” to be unfounded and ordered ASSE to pay him more than 850,000 euros in compensation, the AFP to this jurisdiction.
This compensation includes 609,000 euros that ASSE is ordered to pay to its former guardian for this “early termination of the fixed-term contract”. This sum rises to just over 850,000 euros with damages for harm linked to the “disproportionate disciplinary sanction” which had been notified to him, as well as compensation linked to “cancelled layoffs” in the second half of 2020 and leave paid.
The international goalkeeper (3 selections) was dismissed at the end of 2020, six months before the end of his contract, following calls to order and disciplinary sanctions for alleged insubordination. Stéphane Ruffier was then the goalkeeper of the Greens, who played in Ligue 1, for almost a decade (383 matches played). “It is a very good decision which recognizes the disproportionate disciplinary sanctions and the unfounded dismissal for serious misconduct,” the player’s lawyer reacted to AFP.
“A demolition company”
During the hearing, Me Dorothée Bisaccia-Bernstein denounced the employer’s desire to “isolate” Ruffier until his employment contract was terminated. She had requested more than 7 million euros in compensation in total. The lawyer had mentioned a “long period of moral harassment carried out by coach Claude Puel and general manager Xavier Thuilot, who had the mission of reducing the payroll and firing the players who cost the most”. For her, Stéphane Ruffier underwent “a demolition company”, “a campaign of undermining” and he “ended up stopping football after having his face bashed in”.
“The club has taken note of the decision rendered by the industrial tribunal and is waiting to receive notification of it to consider further action,” commented the ASSE council to AFP. Me Olivier Martin, the club’s lawyer, responded at the hearing by accusing the goalkeeper, repeatedly named “best goalkeeper in Ligue 1”, of having abused his status as the darling of ASSE supporters. He had mentioned “refractory behavior in perfect opposition to the coach’s directives from February 2020”, claiming that he arrived “voluntarily late for training to show who (…) is the boss”.