France’s referees union today condemned accusations of corruption made by Marseille president Pablo Longoria during an extraordinary outburst on Saturday.
Following Marseille’s 3-0 Ligue 1 defeat to Auxerre yesterday, Longoria, 39, criticised referee Jeremy Stinat after his decision to show defender Derek Cornelius a second yellow card during the match, saying: “This is corruption. I’ve never seen anything like it. You can write it down: ‘Pablo Longoria says it’s corruption.’ Everything has been organised. It’s planned, it’s rigged.”
Earlier this year, Marseille director of football Mehdi Benatia was suspended for three months by the French Football Association for his behaviour during Marseille’s Coupe de France defeat to Lille on January 14.
The 37-year-old was shown a red card by referee Clement Turpin for criticising Stinat — who was acting as the fourth official in that game — for not awarding a penalty to Marseille in the latter stages of the game.
A spokesperson for Syndicat des Arbitres du Football d’Elite (SAFE), France’s Elite Football Referees Union, Olivier Lamarre, today responded to Longoria’s comments, calling them dangerous and wrong.
“How can we imagine that our referees are corrupt,” he told RMC Sport. “That shows a complete lack of understanding of their work. No, Mr Longoria, French referees are not corrupt. It’s unacceptable.
“When a president says that, it’s behind hateful messages and death threats that are spread by dozens of people on social networks against the match referee (Stinat) and all the fellow referees.
“We’re putting fellow referees in danger and more generally all French referees, including district referees. We’re throwing them to the wolves. It’s also an attack on football and its values. Questioning their integrity is serious.”
Pablo Longoria (left) has been Marseille president since 2021 while former defender Mehdi Benatia became Marseille’s director of football in January 2025. (Photo by Xavier Laine/Getty Images)
Lamarre also spoke on the decision to appoint Stinat as the referee for Marseille’s match after the Lille game in January, later confirming that SAFE had reported Longoria’s comments to the National Ethics Council (CNE).
Lamarre said: “Was it a mistake to have appointed Jeremy Stinat for this match? The decision may have come as a surprise, but he himself is capable of refereeing these matches.
“I have the impression, week after week, that the system is being a bit overblown (by Marseille) as if they were just waiting for that to talk about corruption. It’s making refereeing difficult, it’s not acceptable.”
Lamarre also told RMC the French referees were “very angry” and he had personally expressed his displeasure to Longoria this morning. He added how they had decided to contact the CNE following his comments, also referring to the officiating issues in Spain, where Real Madrid have voiced their displeasure at several refereeing decisions in recent weeks, for example.
“This is not the right example to follow,” he added.
A spokesperson for Marseille told The Athletic they felt they had been on the wrong side of too many refereeing decisions this season and that referees had been unduly harsh on them, pointing out that they have received six red cards, for example.
They said Marseille had sent a letter to the refereeing committee last week Monday, voicing their concerns about Stinat but received no reply. They added how Longoria, who was not speaking in first language, had only meant to use the word ‘corruption’ because of his frustration with the referee’s performance, rather than implying anything more serious. They added how he was only being provocative when he mentioned the Super League.
Longoria, a Spaniard, who previously worked at Valencia, became Marseille president in February 2021 after a five-month spell as the club’s managing director.
The Athletic has approached SAFE for comment.
Marseille are ten points behind league leaders Paris Saint-Germain, who play Lyon this evening.
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