Europe 1 with AFP 10:12 p.m., January 4, 2023

An amateur footballer has been suspended for 25 years for assaulting a volunteer referee after a match in Gironde but the file could be reopened because the latter allegedly uttered racist insults, we learned from the Ligue de Nouvelle on Wednesday. -Aquitaine (LFNA).

25 years suspension.

A 22-year-old amateur footballer received this strong sanction, the highest before the lifetime radiation.

Licensed in a second division district club, in Gironde-La-Réole (FCGR), he hit a referee on October 2, during a meeting against Monségur.

He punched her and kicked her in the face. 

The aggressor, aged around 20, had first been deprived of competition for 11 years by the departmental district, a sanction increased to 25 years by the LFNA regional appeal commission on the basis of an "aggravated scale voted by local clubs.

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Came to smoke shisha during a game

This suspension pronounced in December corresponds to "an act of brutality committed outside a match against an official, causing an injury noted by medical certificate resulting in an ITT of less than eight days", indicates the legal department of the League.

According to testimonies reported by the president of La Réole, Jérôme Ducloux, the facts took place on October 2 during a match of division 4 of the district of Gironde.

A young player dismissed from the club, but injured, wanted to settle near the pitch to smoke a shisha with friends.

Club officials wanted to prevent them, as well as the volunteer referee of the match, also dismissed at La Réole.

The tone rose and the gendarmerie came to calm things down.

But once the match was over, the young man came to ask the referee if he had hurled racist insults at him, which the person allegedly confirmed by saying that he was "proud" of it.

The forties was then assaulted, with a day of ITT.

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"Two victims, one punished"

"There are two victims but only one punished", considers Mr. Ducloux.

Without excusing his player, who is "neither a delinquent nor a thug" and "assumes his mistake", he finds "regrettable that the person who made the racist remarks was not punished".

The disciplinary bodies "did not have knowledge" of the insults when deciding because they did not appear in the report sent to them, explained the president of the LFNA, Saïd Ennjimi, confirming information from the newspaper Sud Ouest.

The appeal commission "is going to reopen a procedure to find out if racist remarks have indeed been made", he added.

The League says it is "very attentive to the facts of physical violence but also intractable on verbal violence".

Mr. Ducloux, for his part, indicates that he "fired" the referee who was attacked and suspected of racist remarks.