December 7 – Just four days after the death of a Nantes fan that marked a new low in a French season marred by violence, a rescheduled game between Marseille and Lyon took place on Wednesday with no trouble.
The original match was initially scheduled for October 29 but was postponed after fans threw rocks and other projectiles at the Lyon team bus with then coach Fabio Grosso needing stitches in his forehead after being hit by broken glass.
Marseille won the rescheduled game against bottom-ranked Lyon 3-0 but no away fans were allowed to travel.
A wave of fan violence since the start of the season led the president of the Ligue de Football Professionnel (LFP), Vincent Labrune, to denounce “a gangrene that could kill us”, while France’s minister of sport, former swimming champion Roxana Maracineanu, said: “Every time I go to a stadium [to watch a Ligue 1 match] I tell myself it’s a good thing I got my son into rugby rather than football.”
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