The OL-OM shock, closing the 14th day of Ligue 1, was definitively stopped after much procrastination. The match was interrupted in the third minute after Dimitri Payet, who came to take a corner, was hit in the head by a bottle of water thrown from the stands. The announcement of the resumption more than 75 minutes after the incident was ultimately not followed by action, OM refusing to return to the field, believing that the safety of its players was not guaranteed. Chronological reminder of the facts:
A stormy atmosphere
From the start of this Olympico, the tension was palpable: many throwing bottles had punctuated the first seconds and the stadium announcer had to make the first appeals for calm, at the request of the referee.
Dimitri Payet hit in the head
Coming to take a corner for OM, in the 3rd minute, after having waited a long time for the hail of objects to stop, the Marseille midfielder was hit hard in the head by a bottle thrown from the stands. Payet collapses instantly. He was then treated by the Marseille staff before the match was, logically, suspended.
Meeting of crisis and uncertainty
Marseille and Lyon leaders meet, in consultation with the refereeing body, to see if the match should resume. More than an hour after the kick-off of the match, no decision has yet been formalized.
The imbroglio of the resumption of the match
After nearly 75 minutes, the stadium announcer takes the microphone again and announces the resumption of the match, specifying that in the slightest incident, the game will be definitively uninterrupted. The OL players then returned to the pitch for the warm-up but the Marseillais did not seem to accept the decision, as they had already done in Nice.
Two hours of waiting for a final shutdown
It was almost two hours after the incident, and in a stadium half emptied by spectators, that the announcer announced that the match was definitively stopped.
Worrisome precedents
This incident is already the 8th of the season of this kind in Ligue 1. Dimitri Payet, already him, had been the victim of a bottle throw in Nice at the very beginning of the season, in August. The match was then interrupted a quarter of an hour from the end, before being replayed behind closed doors and on neutral ground, in Troyes on October 27 (1-1). The Riviera club had been sanctioned with a withdrawal of two points in the standings, one of which was suspended.