Olympique Marseille is forcing players to stay overnight at the training grounds, violating Labor Code and a form of harassment
What Olympique Marseille is doing to its players could constitute a form of harassment, a lawyer said.
Olympique de Marseille management has decided to force the players to spend the night at the club's training grounds for a second night in a row. They already slept there on Monday, two nights after a 3-0 defeat to Nantes, and by midday of Tuesday they were informed they had been summoned for a second night at the Robert-Louis-Dreyfus centre, where they will remain "until further notice".
According to RMC Sport, management feels "betrayed" by the players' attitude, who now have virtually no chances of qualifying for Champions League next season, as they currently stand seventh in the league only hoping to get a spot in Europa League or Conference League if they win their last two matches. Sources within the squad say the players are "mentally exhausted," "devoid of energy," and simply waiting for the season to end, so forcing them to sleep in the training grounds is a form of "punishment".
But Olympique Marseille has gone too far, and a lawyer consulted by RMC Sport said that if a player chose to go home in the evening and ignore the request, the club would have a hard time legally sanctioning him. Simply put, OM is violating the Labor Code, that states that an employer cannot restrict the freedom of movement of an employee, except for a "justified and proportionate reason", and playing football bad isn't a justifiable reason.
"Professional sport is a world of its own. Many things happen that are completely out of step with what an ordinary working relationship should entail", noted Pierre Vignal, the lawyer consulted by the French outlet, but stated that even in a football club, "this represents a considerable deterioration in their working conditions and could very well constitute a form of harassment. If we were to take this example from a normal company, it would be completely absurd."
"It's article 1121-1 of the Labor Code. There are no exceptions," he specifies. "To restrict a fundamental freedom, there must be justification and it must be proportionate. An employer can decide many things, but within the limits set by law, and explains that forbidding employees to go to their homes at night is "not at all" within the framework of the law. "Preventing them from going home is a restriction on the ordinary exercise of their right to family and private life."
