Grosso-Gate

By: Inara | April 22nd, 2008

Fabio Grosso doesn’t have many admirers in France. Lyon fans don’t think he’s good enough for the club while non-Lyon fans don’t like him because he’s that Italian from the World Cup. Even the media like picking on him, as they spend a lot of time criticizing his performances and overly scrutinizing his falls as possible dives. So his French career was doomed from the start.

Grosso didn’t make any new friends this weekend.

The Grosso hate mania has reached new heights this past weekend during Lyon’s away game at Strasbourg. A few minutes from the end of the first half, Eric Mouloungui was dismissed for a dangerous tackle on Grosso, who later scored Lyon’s winning goal. The home crowd gave Grosso the Cristiano Ronaldo treatment for the rest of the game, booing him anytime he touched the ball, shouting obscenities at him from the stands, and otherwise making him feel like the outsider that he technically is. But that’s nothing new, and Grosso is hardly the first guy to suffer abuse from fans.

But abuse from club managers?

Strasbourg coach Jean-Marc Furlan, convinced that Grosso exaggerated being knocked over during the game, was caught by Canal+ calling Grosso “rital de merde, macaroni” (translated kindly to mean macaroni crap). Furlan later included some other choice comments in his post-match tirade:

“You can’t say that the Italian denied his genes or his race.”

Yikes. Fortunately for us, an enterprising viewer compiled all the incidents together in one handy video clip, where we see the foul on Grosso, his goal, and Furlan’s comments. His words are hard to hear, so you have to turn it all the way up.

Unfortunately for Furlan, he won’t find many sympathizers for his cause, even if hating on Grosso is the fashion right now. He went too far in his comments and is in quite a bit of trouble. La Ligue Internationale Contre le Racisme et l’Antisémitisme (LICRA) condemned Furlan and asked that the LFP start an investigation into the matter without delay while also promising that they would bring a civil suit against him.

Lyon themselves are very angry and responded with a press release on their website, which expressed their disappointment at Furlan’s comments, that Mouloungui’s yellow cards were completely justified, and the fact that Pierre Ducrocq escaped a card for his tackle on Karim Benzema. They also said that they will leave the decision to press charges to Grosso.

Racism aside, Strasbourg are also in hot water thanks to the heated comments by their president, Philippe Ginestet, who cast aspersions on the integrity of the refereeing.

“Enough is enough! Tonight, we saw one way arbitration. On the expulsion, the referee gave into the pressure from the Lyon bench. The referee must be from Lyon. It would have been better if he had just given them the whistle from the start. Eleven played against twelve so that economic interests were protected. That’s not football, that’s business. This is totally unacceptable.”

The aforementioned referee, Said Ennjimi, is none to happy with Ginestet and Furlan. He explained his decision, saying that he had already warned Mouloungui and could in fact have given him a direct red card. He also said that the idea that he was helping Lyon was ridiculous and that Furlan should remember that he refereed Strasbourg’s last win at Le Mans. But his best remark was definitely this one:

“It’s incomprehensible, unacceptable, and shocking to see how club leaders can absolve themselves of all faults and put the blame squarely on the back of the referees…I really don’t get Mr. Furlan. The saddest part is that the primary culprits, the ones who should get the criticism, are his own players.”

Furlan, realizing that his clever little comments were not cool, hastened to defend himself by saying that his comments were taken out of context, and that having lived in Italy for many years, he has the utmost respect for their culture and nation. He also apologized if he unintentionally hurt Grosso’s feelings.

Wow, so much sincerity from Furlan!

So what does all this mean? First of all, Ginestet should escape any sanctions since the LFP is slower to take action on insults to referees as opposed to players. In this one respect, England’s FA is far more advanced at protecting the integrity of their referees.

On the other hand, Furlan is most likely to be hit with a suspension and a possible fine. A manager insulting a player on national TV is bound to be punished. The LFP has strict standards for behavior, especially when it’s a well documented public incident that makes French football, already suffering from other incidents of racism, look really bad. After all, Furlan isn’t an uneducated fan. He’s had a long history as a player and as a manager, so he should know better. Surely Patrick Vieira will have something to say about this.

But in all honestly…macaroni? Is that the best that Furlan could come up with? I mean, if you’re going to insult a player on national television and then be punished for it, shouldn’t you use an actual insult? If anything Furlan should be fined for a blatant lack of creativity.