Lyon President Aulas reacts to Marseille match not finishing after Dimitri Payet was hit
Speaking to Amazon Prime Video, Lyon President Jean-Michel Aulas reacted to tonight’s Ligue 1 clash with Marseille lasting for just 4 minutes after it was suspended and not resumed following OM attacking midfielder Dimitri Payet being hit on the head by a water bottle thrown by a Lyon fan.
“It is quite a paradoxical situation. The bottle was thrown onto Dimitri and created an incredible situation. The security services immediately reacted, he was arrested. It was a sole individual, who is not affiliated with our supporter groups. We believed, with the local authorities, that the match could restart, the referee decided so in the presence of the local authority’s representatives, the DDSP. And when he came back to announce this to the players, there was a violent reaction on the part of the Marseille players who pushed Mr Buquet to check on Dimitri.”
“We are devastated by what happened, the doctor said to me: “more fear than harm.” We apologise. There was such a movement of violence that Mr Buquet asked to see the local authorities again and changed his decision. It was incomprehensible… We are well organised when it comes to security here. And as the individual responsible was arrested, we thought we could start the match again without issues… There was no risk of new projectiles being thrown, with the protections put in place, and the guy responsible being arrested.”
“We asked that there be a precise report of the events, it is unfortunate but not something which must be sanctioned on the spot either… Every day, over a certain number of matches, there are incidents, we try to do the best possible. Believe me the match could have resumed without problem… Now if there are sanctions on it we will see. Our security staff are exemplary. We showed that we were well-organised, which doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t have stopped the match. “