‘I now know who my enemies are’ – Battle lines drawn in Marseille

Turning points can be tricky things to pin down but for Olympique de Marseille the relationship between president Pablo Longoria and general manager Stéphane Tessier was definitively broken on the 31st of March, in the moments that Marseille took to the field to host Paris Saint-Germain. 

It wasn’t the game or the defeat to their eternal rivals that signalled the break, but a tifo lofted above the South Winners bearing the image of a Redouane Bougheraba, a comedian from the city who has a good relationship with the ultras group. 

To the South Winners, it was a symbol of a Marseille-born success story celebrated in the heartbeat of the city, but to the president, it was taken with far less warmth. According to L’Équipe , behind closed doors, Longoria felt it had brought “ shame ” to the club. 

The president had been left “ dumbfounded ” by its unveiling and furious at what he considered to be a marketing stunt in the biggest game in French football, and it was let publicly known that the search for the culprit who had allowed this to be greenlit would be taking place. 

The search didn’t have to last long. Tessier had months in advance approved the tifo. Whether Longoria’s reaction was political manoeuvering to paint his rival as ‘cheapening’ the image of Marseille or whether he simply didn’t know who had given the go-ahead for the image is beside the point. To the public, the president looked as if he had no control of what was happening inside his club, while within Marseille it was nothing short of a declaration of war. 

L’Équipe reports that the mood within Marseille is that of two camps weighing each other up before making the next move. Since the fateful meeting with the supporters in September, which saw