The gap between the Marseille club and its supporters, which seems deeper than ever, has not widened only because of the poor results of OM, according to researcher Ludovic Lestrelin, guest of the morning of Europe 1, Wednesday .

According to him, the crisis is symptomatic of a phenomenon which affects other clubs where "football seems only seen under an economic and financial prism". 

DECRYPTION

Real scenes of urban guerrilla warfare, 25 arrests and "hundreds of thousands of euros in damage": four days after the coup by supporters at the training center, on Saturday afternoon, OM seem more depressed than ever in the crisis.

On the sporting level, the future looks uncertain after the dismissal of the coach, André Villas-Boas.

But it is especially the depth of the divide between the management of the club and its fans that worries.

An exacerbated gap in Marseille but which is not specific to the Phocaean city, decrypts on Europe 1 Ludovic Lestrelin, teacher researcher in Social Sciences and Sports at the University of Caen-Normandy.

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OM, "an extremely important social, cultural and political fact"

Certainly, football represents "more than sport in Marseille" where OM is "an extremely important social, cultural and political fact", poses Ludovic Lestrelin, thus explaining the "proportions" taken by the crisis.

“Behind the ultras groups, there is a dissatisfaction which affects an extremely broad base of supporters,” he said.

But this discontent should, according to him, neither be reduced to a "sporting situation" - the disappointing results of the club, 9th in Ligue 1 and eliminated from the Champions League - nor be seen as a problem specific to OM. 

"There are specificities in Marseille, but it is also a phenomenon which refers to a larger reality", explains the researcher.

"The bottom line is that French professional football is going through mutations, major and rapid transformations. As a result, this destabilizes a large part of the traditional football public."

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Between the management of OM and the supporters, contempt on one side, insults on the other

"A question of respect for the club, its history, its past"

Because, according to Ludovic Lestrelin, "the passion for football is also a relationship to the past and a relationship to childhood", with supporters very attached to the roots of their team.

Result: in Marseille and elsewhere, "the difficulty for the clubs is both to be able to develop, to constantly adapt to a sporting competition which is also a fierce economic competition in France and to European scale, but to be faithful to an identity and a past. "

For the researcher, the resentment of the supporters therefore comes mainly "from the fact that football seems to be seen only through a purely economic and financial prism", with "investors of whom it is not always clear what they are doing in football and the impression that they come to denature a club ".

And to cite the example of Bernard Tapie, popular leader of OM in the 1980s. "He is not from Marseilles, he is from Paris, and that does not prevent him, ultimately, from being today completely adored. (…) It is not a geographical question. It is a question of footballing competence, respect for the club, its history, its past and also respect for the public. "

Management players to defuse the crisis? 

In this context, the club figures who still have this respect can play an important role in defusing the crisis, according to Ludovic Lestrelin.

"I am thinking of senior players, who have seniority and who are respected by the public," he said, citing in particular the example of Steve Mandanda, the captain of OM.

According to information from Europe 1, Basile Boli, former legend of the club, was also called to the rescue by the leaders of Marseille to play a mediating role with the supporters.