Waldemar Kita, president of Nantes, let his anger explode in the corridors of the Vélodrome locker rooms against referee François Letexier for not having awarded a penalty to his team for two Marseille hands.
Nantes left Marseille very angry on Sunday. A few moments after the defeat of the Canaries (2-0) at the Vélodrome, Waldemar Kita, president of the club, expressed his anger to the referee François Letexier and his assistants for a penalty not awarded despite a handball from Chancel Mbemba on a strike from Mostafa Mohamed (50th), who then touched that of Bamo Meïté. The referee allowed the game to play without being called by the video assistant to give an opinion or rejudge it.
“There’s no point in new technology if you don’t check it”
“VAR exists, we’re fed up with it at the end, we’re fed up with it,” Kita repeated towards the refereeing trio, according to images captured by Amazon Prime Video. “All the TV is talking about that. There are two hands like that, but it’s incredible. There’s VAR. There’s no point in the new technology if you don’t check. There’s a huge hand.”
After walking away from the referees’ locker room, the Franco-Polish businessman reiterated his fed-up. “Honestly, you’re tired of all these guys looking at you meanly,” he fumed. The Nantes residents consider themselves wronged by another penalty not whistled in the first half for a handball, again from Mbemba (36th). Which also led Jocelyn Gourvennec, Nantes coach, to a long tirade against refereeing.
“It’s difficult to accept,” he said. “The trouble arises from several situations, but not only this evening, railed Gourvennec. Since the start of the season, there has been debate over contentious images. One time, the referee comes, sometimes he does not come to see. suddenly he thinks that there is a hand, suddenly he thinks that there is no hand, it creates trouble and anger among all the actors.”
The technician was also angry at having been warned after expressing his incomprehension. “It’s scandalous, it’s shameful,” he concluded. “I didn’t say anything special. I just showed a little nervousness. But if the referees are not able to understand that when you are a Ligue 1 coach there is a little nervousness, a little little tension… I have never spoken badly to a referee, nor insulted anyone on the field. I am not going to start now. They put cards to show pseudo authority. I find it inappropriate, it adds trouble.”