Dressing Room Visits & Picked Pockets: Reffin’ Ain’t Easy.

Despite Massimo Busacca’s finger flailing shenanigans and subsequent ban, he’s got nothin’ on the suddenly comically under fire Fredy Fautrel of the Ligue 1. There was a great deal of controversy last week when it was reported that Jean-Michel Aulas, president of Lyon, has skipped on down to the referees’ locker room during halftime of their PSG fixture to have a word with Fredy about his feeling on the positional merits of Ludovic Giuly’s goal – an onside goal. Down 1-0, Bafetimbi Gomis scored and 85th minute equalizer for Lyon – an offside equalizer. You can see where this is going.

The incidents in question:

A tough call, but offside nonetheless, and with Aulas’ midgame visit, the conspiracy theorists were in a full frenzy (as this is reportedly a common occurrence with Lyon…or so they say). Despite offside calls falling under the role of the linesman, it was still Fautrel’s crew and he bore the brunt of the blame.

So this weekend he was hoping for a light and uncontroversial game. Traveling to Valenciennes is often pretty light fare (they’re not quite good, not quite bad), but with Marseille the opposing team, the consequences were not small. All was going well until the second half when Fautrel went to show a yellow card and found his pockets…picked. Reaching for the yellow, Fautrel grabbed nothing but lint.

Chuckles ensued and Fautrel was forced to get some punishment squares from the fourth assistant in order to hand out his warning, and this the second weekend in a row Fredy was left with a bit of egg on his face – though at least this one he can laugh at himself. Hopefully after the game Fredy showed himself the red and is on his way to a much needed vacation.

Controversial refereeing? Thievery? When did Ligue 1 become the new Serie A?

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Category: French Ligue 1, World Football