Marseille left the pitch beaten 2-1 by Paris Saint-Germain on Sunday, but one first-half incident has continued to hang over the match. With the score still goalless in the 38th minute, Amine Gouiri went down inside the PSG area after contact with Désiré Doué, yet referee François Letexier allowed play to continue and VAR did not request a review.
The sequence began with Neal Maupay, who initiated the move before Gouiri carried the ball into the Paris penalty box. The Algeria international worked through a short dribble before Doué made contact around his legs and Gouiri fell.
There are competing interpretations of the incident. One view is that Doué caught Gouiri without playing the ball and unbalanced the Marseille forward. The other is that Gouiri had already started to go down before the contact arrived, while the ball had moved too far away for him to retain possession.
Former France defenders split over decision
Adil Rami, the former Marseille defender who played for the club between 2017 and 2019, was emphatic in his assessment after the game.
“If Gouiri throws himself down, I say no,” Rami said. “But he enters the Paris area and there is clearly contact. For me it is a penalty, with no debate. The contact is there.”
Philippe Mexès took a more cautious line. The former Auxerre and France defender felt Gouiri had made the most of the contact, but added that comparable challenges have produced spot-kicks in the past.
“He goes down a little easily and sells it well, but I have seen fouls given for less than that,” Mexès said.
Ball position central to the counter-argument
Clément Grenier backed Letexier’s decision, arguing that the position of the ball gave the officials reason not to intervene.
“My feeling is that, after the two contacts, Gouiri gets past Doué but the ball seems too far behind him,” Grenier said. “That is where there can be doubt, because Marquinhos can recover the ball. I think the ball is too far away.”
The Marseille view, however, was that Doué did not get a touch on the ball and instead took both of Gouiri’s legs. Had a penalty been awarded at 0-0, it could have altered the direction of a match eventually won by PSG.
Neither side’s central figures prolonged the debate after the final whistle. Marseille coach Bruno Genesio did not address the incident in his press conference, while Maupay, the only Marseille player to speak afterwards and a regular interlocutor with referees during matches, also declined to comment on the action he had started.
