(Reuters) – The Ligue 1 match between Montpellier and Clermont on Sunday was abandoned in stoppage time after the visitors’ keeper was targeted by a firecracker.
Clermont’s Mory Diaw fell to the ground when the firecracker, thrown from the Etang de Thau tribune where Montpellier fans sit, exploded next to him, before being carried off on a stretcher.
Referee Florent Batta sent the players to the dressing- room before deciding not to resume the game which Montpellier were leading 4-2.
“After a firecracker was thrown near the visiting goalkeeper, the player collapsed to the ground,” Batta told reporters.
“For the safety of the players, I asked everyone to return to the dressing-room. We set up a crisis unit. The doctor who examined the Clermont goalkeeper found that he was not fit to resume the match. As a result, the match was definitively abandoned.”
(Reporting by Julien Pretot; Editing by Ed Osmond)
