Ben Arfa vs. Squillaci

By: Inara | March 22nd, 2008

Right after I wrote up a post about how mature Hatem Ben Arfa is and how he’s a humble guy who never badmouths his team, L’Equipe reported that a fight broke out between him and Sebastien Squillaci.

Apparently, Ben Arfa insulted Squillaci during training last Tuesday. When practice was over, Squillaci cornered Ben Arfa in the locker rooms and asked him to repeat what he had said earlier. Ben Arfa tried to bolt, and then somehow, the two of them started going at each other as if they were part of the Olympique Lyonnais Boxing Club. The next thing you know, both of them sat out Lyon’s Coupe de France match against Sochaux the following day.

As timing goes, this couldn’t have happened at a worst time for Ben Arfa. He’s in the midst of a confidence crisis, is currently out of favor with Alain Perrin, is trying to extend his contract at the club, and is attempting to consolidate a spot on the France National Team. The club itself is in the middle of a tough time - they face PSG tomorrow and then have two tough trips to Valenciennes and Marseille.

But let’s look at this objectively for a second. As Jao pointed out in the comments of the last post, players fighting amongst themselves is not unusual, and most of the time, those incidents are simply a way to release frustration and stress and tend to be harmless.

It took four days for news of Ben Arfa’s fight with Squillaci to be reported, even though there were tons of witnesses. Keep in mind that even a newspaper like L’Equipe has to worry about sales (especially now, with their floundering circulation) and aren’t above manipulating information. Squillaci and especially Ben Arfa are high profile French footballers, so you’d think that someone would have blabbed it to the media a lot sooner. So this makes me think that their fight wasn’t such a big deal. Maybe Squillaci tackled Ben Arfa a bit too enthusiastically at practice, maybe Ben Arfa told Squillaci that his haircut makes him looks more like a girl.

At least that’s what I hope. Ben Arfa and Squillaci are not only important members of OL who will play together for a few seasons yet, but they’re also teammates on the NT. I’d hate for this incident to make Lyon’s locker room even more fractured than it already is.

Thanks to Jo for the original article.