The Ligue de Football Professionnel finally handed out its long-awaited decision earlier this week over the investigation of Neymar’s allegation that Olympique de Marseille defender Alvaro Gonzalez racially abused him during the Le Classique fixture last month. In a decision that garnered stark criticism, the LFP decided not to suspend Gonzalez.
The LFP surely took its time to review the evidence at hand to examine whether Gonzalez directed any racist remark at Neymar. The organization also heard what both players had to say about the alleged incident. But in the end, the LFP decided that it did not have “sufficient convincing evidence” to conclude that Gonzalez did indeed in fact use a racist remark during his confrontation with Neymar.
Sébastien Deneux, chairman of the LFP’s Disciplinary Committee, explained further (via Le Parisien) as to why the organization held off on handing out a multi-game suspension to the Marseille defender.
“The statements to the contrary from the players did not make it possible to establish in a clear, neat and precise manner the words exchanged,” Deneux said. “We also found that the expert’s conclusions were too random and did not constitute a sufficiently tangible element to allow the commission to sanction.
“There was no correlation between the statements of the players and the conclusions of the expert who specified that the technique of the expertise is only reliable up to 30%. Which leaves room for doubt.”
In a matter such as this one, the LFP needed to be completely sure and beyond a reasonable doubt that Gonzalez did use a racist remark at Neymar. At the moment, PSG has not pushed to appeal the LFP’s decision, so it seems as if this matter will not be reopened soon for further investigation by the organization.
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