The end of the season will not have restored the image of football supporters with a player attacked in Bordeaux, then an Ajaccio-OM marked by racist cries and the attacks of a journalist and the family of a sick child. Friday evening, Bordeaux-Rodez in Ligue 2 had turned into a bad film and had been definitively arrested after the attack on a Ruthenian player by a supporter.
At the same time in Corsica, clashes in the center of Ajaccio opposed Corsican supporters to those of OM, who had come for the 38th and final day of Ligue 1. Incidents which prompted the authorities to set up in the emergency a fan-zone on a beach on Saturday to contain some 600 Marseille supporters expected for the evening match which ended in a 1-0 victory for Ajaccio.
Despite these precautions, before the match, around thirty Ajaccio supporters attacked Marseille fans, who had just arrived in the closed parking lot reserved for them at the François-Coty stadium. They hurled racist insults at them, including monkey cries. The two groups of supporters then threw projectiles at each other.
At the same time, another scene was playing out: an eight-year-old child with brain cancer invited to fulfill his “dream” of meeting OM players was targeted with his parents.
“He banged his face against the balcony bar”
Arriving in the box, Kenzo and his father put on their blue and white OM jerseys, Corsican supporters see them. About fifteen young men then climbed up to them, the child’s mother told AFP.
“My youngest son managed to jump the barrier and went to the lodge next door. Kenzo didn’t understand what was happening, he got pushed around and fell. He slapped his face against the balcony bar. My husband was right behind, they asked him for his jersey and they punched him twice in the head. Then they left and burned the jersey, ”says Amandine, who lives with her family near Cassis, in the Bouches-du-Rhône and prefers to keep her name silent.
“I did not think that so much hatred was going to settle” for a match without sporting stakes, supports the dad, Laurent, who says he “was very afraid for the safety” of his children.
The Corsican club denounced “unspeakable acts” and promised to file a complaint “as soon as the individuals have been identified”. The family filed a complaint and the Ajaccio prosecutor opened an investigation for violence in meetings.
“We asked that all means be used to identify the perpetrators of these unspeakable facts as soon as possible,” explained to AFP the public prosecutor of Ajaccio, Nicolas Septe.
The president of the Orsi Ribelli group of supporters, for his part, disputed certain details in the daily Corse Matin while acknowledging that “a few people went upstairs, punched the father twice to make him take off the jersey before going down with The clothe “.
“There really have to be consequences. If he’s really a supporter, he deserves a stadium ban “because” they managed to shock my son, “claimed Kenzo’s father.
Journalist also attacked
Justice opened another investigation, for “aggravated violence and aggravated theft”, after the attack on a journalist from France 3 Corse Via Stella by Marseille supporters this time in a gas station after the match.
“First elements report serious violence committed by a group of individuals whose identities are being sought. Police custody was initiated at 1:15 a.m. on Sunday, the prosecutor further specified.
The journalist was briefly hospitalized and the channel announced the filing of a complaint.
The mayor of Ajaccio, Stéphane Sbraggia, expressed on Twitter his indignation at “acts which testify to a worrying loss of values”. The mayor of Marseille, Benoît Payan, told him that he had “no words to describe this scandalous aggression” by Kenzo.
These last two days are “a compendium of everything you should never see around a football pitch”, for his part declared Gilles Simeoni, president of the executive council of Corsica.