A small mix-up with a real price tag
France walked out late for a Nations League game in Brussels on September 28, and UEFA has now sent the bill. According to L’Equipe, European football’s governing body fined the French Football Federation 10,000 euros, with RMC Sport picking up the story this morning.
The cause was almost comically small. L’Equipe reports that the players had not taped the correct color of straps onto their socks and that nobody on the staff had checked. Match organizers sent them back to fix it, and the kickoff, set for 8:45 pm, slipped by a few minutes. Belgium-France ended 0-1.
The paperwork angle matters here. L’Equipe says the breach falls under article 6.07 of the Nations League regulations, which requires federations to enter the required kit information on UEFA’s TIME platform in the weeks before each match.
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Zidane’s rocky first camp
It was not the only hiccup of Zinedine Zidane’s first camp with the national team. Three days earlier in Turkey, a 1-0 win, he missed the opening bars of La Marseillaise. RMC Sport reported at the time that he had not been briefed on the exact order of the pre-match protocol. “The protocol was quicker than expected,” Zidane said afterwards, admitting he was a step behind. A pennant also had to be fetched from the dressing room in a hurry.
The staff went over all of it in a debrief on October 6, the day after the camp ended.
France now regroup at Clairefontaine for the last two group games. They travel to Milan on Thursday at 8:45 pm, then host Turkey in Bordeaux three days later. A draw is enough to book a quarter-final spot, and Kylian Mbappe returns after missing the previous camp through injury.
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