Florian Grill wants the criticism of Ben O'Keefe to stop

President of the French Rugby Federation, Florian Grill, returned to the controversy surrounding the refereeing of the match between France and South Africa in the World Cup quarter-finals. He called on French fans to turn the page.

Enough is enough. Invitation of 4V in France on December 2, the President of the French Federation of Rugby Florian Grill is located on the police station in New Zealand Ben O'Keeffe in the final quarter of the Coupe in the French-Afrique rugby world. From the south. For him, criticizing the referee, who is considered responsible for the Blues' defeat by more than one in two Frenchmen, is excessive.

“We have to face things. There are decisions that can raise questions but at the same time we make four attempts. These four attempts are not the referee's job,” Florian Grill ruled.

This call to reason follows a column titled “Defending referees and respect is defending rugby” and published on Tuesday by the manager on his Facebook page in which the French rugby president calls for “an end to negative comments about referees.”

“The referee, like the player, is not infallible,” he says.

“To accept that people say bad things about referees, opening this Pandora's box, is to risk not having one anymore, because they will not go on the field anymore. Talking only about the referee prevents us from analyzing the reality of the match with clarity”, we can read there.

Cyberstalking Ben O'Keefe

Ben O'Keefe's decisions have been widely commented on since the French XV's heartbreaking defeat to the Springboks. Consequently, many of them were considered in favor of the world champions, in particular the fact that the video referee was not used in the conversion of Tomas Ramos, which was blocked by Cheslin Kolbe. Several video clips appeared after the match, taken from different angles of the stadium, which helped fuel the remorse of the French public.

Introducing Ben O'Keeffe's criticism, said captain Antoine Dupont, who, although he readily admitted that he did not want to “play the role of a bitter person who complains about the referee because he lost”, felt that – perhaps this was not “up to the issue” during the press conference That followed the match.

In the days following the Blues' defeat, the New Zealand referee was the target of online harassment from frustrated French fans. A phenomenon that has not been alleviated by the information received Olympic midday Which revealed that the World Rugby Championship supervisors reviewed the quarter-final match between France and South Africa and admitted five major refereeing errors, including three errors that were unfavorable to the Blues.