It has become a ritual. Almost every day, errors in refereeing or interpretation of VAR pollute the matches, tense up the players and tarnish the refereeing body a little more. So Antony Gautier, the head of French refereeing, plays the firefighter on duty to try to put out the fires spreading in the locker rooms or social networks.
Sunday evening, Lyon's last-minute victory against Brest (4-3) was at the end of an refereeing farce. With hands not whistled or, for example, the deserved expulsion of Lyonnais Nicolas Tagliafico but also the astonishing one of his victim, Pierre Lees-Melou who had only made the mistake of shouting out his pain. Questioned by France Bleu Breizh Izel, Antony Gautier therefore returned to the meeting and recognized two errors on the part of the outdated referee Mathieu Vernice.
For Antony Gautier, a penalty should have been awarded after 16 minutes in Brest. “You have an artificial increase in the surface covered by the body of the Lyon defender,” he explains. Obviously with a defender who takes the risk of touching the ball with his hand and being penalized in this situation. And so there, the expected decision was a penalty and an intervention from the video assistance if the decision was not taken on the field.
The referee “the most unfortunate among us”
If he refuses to judge Mathieu Vernice on the ridiculous expulsion of Pierre Lees-Melou, Antony Gautier notes that Brest should never have obtained a free kick which allowed him to score: “The images speak for themselves since you have a Lyon player who has his arm and elbow stuck to his body and who, with this position, sees the ball hitting the top of his arm. So obviously, there is no artificial increase
of the surface covered by the body by the Lyon player. And so very clearly, this hand was not punishable.”
Finally, the referee criticizes the non-expulsion of the Brest goalkeeper after his uncontrolled exit which knocked out Alexandre Lacazette and offered the winning penalty to OL: “The expected decision on this situation is that initially of penalty since the contact is proven and punishable. And it is, on the other hand, a red card since there is clearly a danger to the physical integrity of the Lyon player.”
At the end of the interview, Antony Gautier refused to allow anyone to doubt Mr. Vernice's integrity. “We cannot question the intellectual honesty of the referees, who always enter the field with the same impartiality. (…) I can tell you today that having spoken at great length with Mathieu Vernice, he is probably the most unhappy among us. »