French league team strikes after death

Press, 10 January 1987, Page 22

French league team strikes after death

NZPA-AFP Carcassonne, France The death early this week of a French rugby league player has resulted in his team-mates refusing ever again to play against their opponents in last week-end’s tragedy. The Carcassonne team is also boycotting the French championship with immediate effect until it is given guarantees on a list of de- ' mands, notably concerning the fight against violence on the pitch, the presence of emergency services at stadiums, and injured players being allowed immediate treatment without the referee’s permission. Jean-Francois Dare, Carcassonne’s 32-year-old centre, died in hospital in Toulouse last Monday without regaining consciousness after suffering a brain haemorrhage and going into a deep coma following a tackle in last Sunday’s match against XIII Catalan, from Perpignan. Although the player’s family has not lodged a complaint, the public prosecutor in Carcassonne, Jean-Jacques Sylvestre, has opened an inquiry, seized all film and photographs of the game and ordered a post mortem examination to determine whether any earlier rough treatment of Dare, might not have weakened him physically before exposing him to the fatal tackle. There were numerous scuffles during the first half but the Carcassonne secre-

tary, Louis Fernandez, has underlined that there was no suggestion of foul play when Dare was tackled in the 76th minute. In a letter to the French Rugby League president, Jacques Soppelsa, justifying their action, the players said their move was as a “gesture of mourning, friendship and protest.” Their decision came after Wednesday’s funeral which, at the request of Dare’s family, was not attended by XIII Catalan players and officials as they had intended. "Sport is not above the law. The universe of the stadium is not outside legal proceedings and if the rules of the game were overstepped, then public order would come into force,” said Mr Sylvestre. “For several years I have felt a deep dissatisfaction in seeing the legal proceedings following violence in sports stadiums. I am thinking especially of the Heysel tragedy,” he added, referring to the riots before the 1985 European Cup final at the Heysel stadium in Brussels in which 39 people died. Mr Sylvestre recalled two previous rugby tragedies in Carcassonne. In October, 1985, a 24-year-old rugby union player, Jean-Claude Mazet of US Carcassonne, died a week after breaking his neck in a league game. Three seasons earlier serious injury left the club’s hooker, Michel Cortal, paralysed in the lower part of his body.