Football: Marseille club Malpassé deprived of U17 National next season, regrets decisions it does not understand.

In the ranking, Malpassé is well ahead in the U16 Regional championship and therefore will be promoted to the U17 National next season. However, it should be overtaken by Burel FC when the calculation of the famous penalty points (see La Provence last Sunday) is carried out.

Your club has just experienced a historic season in U16R1. What is your assessment of this season?

Sportingly, the assessment of this season is very satisfying. The team had a perfect year on the field, and put in all the ingredients to finish as champions. We finish first, with the best defense and the best goal difference in the league. The coaches and the board are very proud of the work done.

You have issued a statement expressing your confusion regarding your non-promotion to U17 Nationals. Can you tell us more about this?

The statement was made to clarify certain areas of uncertainty regarding the penalties imposed by the league. We are prevented from moving up to U17 National citing fair play and anti-violence measures, but when we look at our progress in detail, we have never had any issues. All our matches went well, and everyone was well received at our club, our opponents and officials can confirm this. There are other decisions that we do not understand, with sometimes disproportionate sanctions depending on who is involved, but we will detail this later.

Has a formal appeal been filed with the Mediterranean League (LMF)?

Not yet, but we are working on it. The steps are being taken by our lawyers, and information that we cannot disclose right away will be included in a dossier that we are currently preparing. We hope to wrap this up fairly quickly and will communicate when the appeal has been submitted.