The Sunday Times:
Fabien Barthez, the former Manchester United goalkeeper, has threatened to retire from football if he receives the maximum punishment, a year’s ban, for abusing and spitting at a referee.
His case will be heard by the French Football Federation’s (FFF) disciplinary commission before the end of this month. He has been called to account for an incident in Morocco on February 12. His club, Olympique Marseille, had arranged a friendly against Wydad Casablanca that turned sour in the second half, by which time Barthez had been substituted.
Marseille were leading 2-1 when their defender Frederic Dehu received a red card from referee Abdellah El Achiri. A brawl between opposing players followed and missiles were thrown from the 25,000 crowd. Barthez reportedly rose from the bench, advanced towards El Achiri and insulted him.
The referee later told Moroccan radio that Barthez then spat in his face. The match was abandoned after 82 minutes and Marseille fined Barthez five days later.
The next week, the Moroccan FA sent its report to its French counterpart, whose president, Jean-Pierre Escalettes, announced: "Any player behaving this way has to be punished."
A date of April 7 (last Thursday) was initially set for Barthez’s hearing. He requested a delay and the FFF disciplinary commission will set a new date, with Thursday week the likeliest.
Barthez’s posture has been confusing. He did not seek out El Achiri later that day, or subsequently, and is yet to issue an apology. His only public statements have hardly been designed to ingratiate himself with the football authorities. At a press conference ahead of France’s past two World Cup qualifying fixtures he made clear his intention to retire should he receive a year’s ban, and then attacked "a profession (football) that gets more and more rotten". He also expressed concern about travelling to play in Israel with the national team because of the political situation there. In the meantime, he had two fine games for France, who are struggling to reach next year’s World Cup finals.
The possibility of a year-long ban for Barthez is genuine. Italy’s Francesco Totti and the Swiss player Alexander Frei collected three-match bans from Uefa for spitting at opponents during Euro 2004, but the same offence against a referee earned the Yugoslavia international Mehmed Bazdarevic a 12-month suspension from all football in 1991. Barthez’s advisers hope the context, a friendly match, and the record of a long career full of eccentricities but no reputation for malevolence will count in his favour.
At 33, his intention to retire if he receives the maximum ban should be taken at face value. He spent half of last season absent from competitive football after being dropped by Manchester United at the end of the 2002-3 season. He joined Marseille, where he won the European Cup in 1993, in the January 2004 transfer window, helping them reach the Uefa Cup final. The climax to the campaign would be an unhappy one, though. Barthez was sent off for a foul in Marseille’ s defeat against Valencia.
The El Achiri case is the talk of French football. Barthez is probably the highest profile player employed in the domestic league, and although professional opinion tends to side with the goalkeeper and against a maximum penalty, the incident has generated further controversies. Last weekend the captain of Paris St-Germain, Jose Pierre- Fanfan, told a French magazine: "I ask myself one question , ‘Would he have done that if the referee was white?’ " El Achiri has also spoken about events. "I would have liked to forgive him," he told L’Equipe. "That depended on him, but I’ve read that he doesn’t regret his attitude. I can’t really forgive him. Referees can only defend themselves with their pens. I’ve made my report and that’s where it ends for me."