AS Monaco’s six-month unbeaten streak came to an end at the hands of local rivals OGC Nice in the Côte d’Azur derby on Sunday, and not without controversy.
The encounter was punctuated by controversial refereeing calls. Les Monégasques felt aggrieved after their didn’t receive a penalty for what Adi Hütter adjudged to be a handball in the Nice box with the game at 0-0. “Sometimes, I can’t understand the decisions, like the handball. Sometimes I don’t understand the rules. I thought it was a clear [penalty],” reacted the Austrian in a post-match press conference, attended by Get French Football News.
Hütter, by and large, didn’t want to engage in the criticism of Jérémie Pignard’s refereeing performance, emphasising his own side’s errors that allowed Le Gym to take the ascendancy. “We have to take responsibility for the defeat,” said Hütter. CEO Thiago Scuro was, however, more critical as he passed through the mixed zone.
The Brazilian felt aggrieved by Vanderson’s red card on the stroke of halftime. The defender was already on a yellow card when he pushed Mohamed Ali-Cho off the ball after Monaco had been awarded a free-kick. The France youth international reacted, squaring up to Vanderson, who backed away. But a mass brawl ensued, which saw Vanderson receive a second yellow card. Cho was also handed a yellow card.
Monaco’s CEO sends warning to LFP over refereeing
Cho’s reaction, which saw Vanderson red-carded, was calculated, as he revealed post-match. “I knew he had a yellow card. That’s football, you have to have a bit of deviousness. He pushed me and I didn’t like that and I knew he had a yellow so I tried to pique him a bit and it worked,” said Cho.
Despite being uninvolved in the brawl, which involved both benches, Vanderson was the one who paid for it. “If you look at this referee’s history with Monaco, he likes to give us red cards,” began Scuro. “It is the sixth that he has given us. We were already worried about this topic because we had problems last year.”
Scuro ended by sending a warning to the LFP. “Confidence and respect towards the league also depend on the quality of the referees,” said the Principality club’s CEO. The defeat against Le Gym was Monaco’s first of the season, and it leaves them three points adrift of Paris Saint-Germain.
GFFN | Luke Entwistle – reporting from Nice
