Marseille owner Frank McCourt and sporting director Medhi Benatia reportedly want to “make players pay” by enforcing a punitive training ground lockdown on the Olympique de Marseille squad following the club’s dramatic collapse in form, according to comments made by Daniel Riolo on RMC’s After Foot.
Les Phocéens’s dramatic collapse in the closing weeks of the Ligue 1 season has reportedly triggered major tensions behind the scenes, with club owner Frank McCourt and sporting director Medhi Benatia said to be furious with the squad’s recent performances.
Speaking on After Foot on RMC, journalist Daniel Riolo claimed Marseille’s hierarchy have effectively “locked down” the first-team squad at La Commanderie following Saturday’s humiliating 3-0 defeat to FC Nantes.
The defeat continued OM’s alarming slide at the end of the campaign. After spending much of the season competing near the top of the table, Marseille have now won just one of their last six Ligue 1 matches and have fallen to seventh place with only two games remaining.
Riolo explained on RMC that McCourt has personally backed the decision to keep the players confined at the club’s training centre.
“Frank McCourt is very, very angry,” Riolo said. “He is also pushing for the players to be locked in. It’s almost like revenge against the players. Basically: ‘You’re on huge salaries, what you’re doing is shameful, so we’re going to make you pay for it.’”
According to Riolo, head coach Habib Beye is not fully aligned with the measure, believing the fractured dressing room is already beyond that type of punishment.
“This decision doesn’t satisfy Habib Beye because he knows the group is no longer following,” Riolo added. “In a squad, if three players stop playing for you, it’s finished.”“In today’s football, nobody really believes locking players away for one or two weeks works anymore,” Riolo concluded. “But they are in a mindset of wanting to make them pay.”GFFN | George Boxall
