Longoria affair: from Leonardo to Ibra, the other greats of French football punished before the president of OM

The Pablo Longoria affair has been shaking French football since last weekend. The OM president's meltdown after his club's stinging defeat in Auxerre, accusing referees of corruption, was judged this Wednesday by the LFP disciplinary committee. Longoria was suspended for 15 matches, reviving memories of other famous cases that also resulted in major sanctions. Here is a non-exhaustive list.

On November 17, 2012, at the end of the match between Valenciennes and Montpellier in Ligue 1 , the Montpellier defender punched a journalist from the sports daily L'Équipe in the face. The LFP's decision was finally rendered in December: Cyril Jeunechamp (32 years old at the time) received a one-year suspension. On appeal, the player saw his sentence reduced to six months in prison and six months suspended.

PSG's sporting director shouldered Alexandre Castro, the referee of the match between PSG and Valenciennes. The Brazilian was initially given a nine-month ban from performing official duties and being on the bench. Then his sentence was increased on appeal to twelve months. A few months later, after resigning and leaving his position at PSG, the sanction was finally lifted because Leonardo did not have an FFF license.

Guilty of a headbutt on Thiago Motta, the PSG midfielder, in a corridor of the Parc des Princes while he was playing with Bastia, the Brazilian was suspended for 6 months. While Motta suffers from a broken nose without displacement, Brandao was also tried by the criminal court for intentional violence with premeditation committed in a sports venue. He was sentenced to one month in prison and a fine of 20,000 euros. On appeal, his sentence was modified: five months in prison and still a fine of 20,000 euros.

Medhi Benatia , the sporting director of OM, was recently suspended from all duties for 3 months firm and 3 months suspended by the FFF Disciplinary Committee. He came down onto the pitch at the final whistle of the match between OM and Losc in the Coupe de France. A sanction all the more severe since Benatia was under a suspended sentence.

Benoit Tavenot, coach of SC Bastia (Ligue 2), was sanctioned at the end of January after a trip to Pau for grabbing and pulling Pau player Jordy Gaspar to the ground by the jersey. A violent gesture that earned him a twelve-match suspension, four of which were suspended . He could have been more severely sanctioned if we follow the FFF's disciplinary scale, but the latter ruled that Tavenot had not injured the player.

After PSG's defeat in Bordeaux, Zlatan Ibrahimovic made "rude and insulting remarks" against the referee: "I've been playing football for fifteen years and I've never seen such a bad referee in this shitty country. This country doesn't deserve PSG. PSG shouldn't even be in this country, we're too good for this country." He was given a 3-match suspension , the fourth being the revocation of the suspended sentence he had since a bad gesture on Saint-Etienne's Romain Hamouma.