Ligue 1: “It’s absurd, I’m angry”, complains Kombouaré behind closed doors during Nantes-Lyon

“Angry” at a sanction that he finds inappropriate, Nantes coach Antoine Kombouaré on Friday described as “big bullshit” the closed session inflicted on his team for the match against Lyon, Sunday, for the 28th day of Ligue 1 During the last home match of the Canaries against Strasbourg (1-3), the Loire Brigade, the main group of yellow and green supporters, had “cracked” 281 smoke bombs.

The Professional Football League (LFP) had inflicted on the club a total closed session against Lyon and a closure of the Loire Tribune, the corner where the Loire Brigade officiates, for the last two home matches of the season, against Rennes and Lille. “This is nonsense. I’m angry,” the technician first blurted out on the subject. “Even if I understand the sanctions, the disciplinary committee, all that (...) A football match, for me, is a spectacle and, I will say it, for me, the pyrotechnics are part of the spectacle” , he judged. “Today, you are negotiating TV rights and you are going to have a match on a Sunday at 8:45 p.m. behind closed doors. But this is nonsense! Big bullshit,” he got carried away again.

Above all, Kombouaré considered the sanction as unsuitable as it was ineffective. “In this match against Strasbourg, there were what, 32,000/33,000 spectators? The ones that are at fault, how many do you have? 300? Even the Loire Tribune, which we are going to sanction for the last two matches, is it a stand which contains 6,500/7000? Why sanction the whole of Beaujoire?”, he asked.

He was joined, more diplomatically, by his Lyon counterpart, Pierre Sage. “It's horrible to play football matches in these conditions (...), football has no meaning as long as it is not played for someone and that someone , in general, it’s the public,” said the OL coach. As for Nantes, 14th in the Ligue 1 standings, which is only two points ahead of the red zone, “with the public or without the public (...) these are three points which are extremely important in the race to maintain,” recalled Kombouaré.