Flying fists and shoes – why locker room fights aren’t worth it

Both have to leave the club: the quarrelers Adrien Rabiot and Jonathan Rowe.

Locker room brawls in football are a genre all their own, just like bar fights . The fuel in these fights isn't alcohol, but rather heated emotions, often after a defeat. This was also the case at Olympique de Marseille, a club generally not known for its poise.

The clash involved 53-time French international Adrien Rabiot and England U21 international Jonathan Rowe . The latter was accused of lacking commitment after the season's opening loss to Rennes. Initially, there was a verbal exchange, followed by fists flying. According to OM president Pablo Longoria, he was completely unapologetic. "What happened there was extremely serious and extremely violent – ​​something I've never experienced before."

Véronique Rabiot assesses the situation somewhat differently. She is not only Adrien's mother, but also his agent . Madame Rabiot is clearly not one of those mother hens who annoys her children with excessive concern. She told RTL: "No one was injured, no one had to go to the hospital, there were no broken noses, no split lips, no stitches were needed, and there was no loss of work." Or, to summarize: Did anything happen at all?

So much so, in the club's eyes, that this week they commuted the two players' provisional suspension to the maximum penalty: Rabiot and Rowe were placed on the transfer list and must leave OM. For Véronique Rabiot, the decision apparently feels more drastic than her son's fistfight . "We don't understand what's going on," she said. "I thought a house was falling on my head. We were all very shocked."

In fact, other clubs have taken less harsh action in similar cases. When Leroy Sané and Sadio Mané clashed in the dressing room at FC Bayern two years ago, the latter was merely fined—even though the attacked Sané even sustained the bloody lip that Mrs. Rabiot had missed on her son.

Another outburst had more serious consequences. After Manchester United lost to Arsenal in the 2003 Cup, manager Alex Ferguson was irritated, to say the least. He criticized his star player, David Beckham , who rebutted his criticism. Beckham later admitted that he may have used the F-word a few too many times. Ferguson kicked a pile of clothes on the ground, and underneath it lay Ole Gunnar Solskjær's boot, which flew through the air and hit Beckham below the left eye.

He didn't hit back with his fists. (Mainly because his teammates prevented him from doing so, as he recounted in the Netflix documentary.) But he did plaster the wound decoratively, which Ferguson considered a staged attack. It wasn't even worth a stitch, he said—perhaps in the spirit of the unabashed Véronique Rabiot. Soon after, David Beckham moved to Real Madrid . He kept the boot as a souvenir.

An article from the « NZZ am Sonntag »