Sebastien Chabal apologises for remarks about Top 14 referees and refereeing standards
A day after Racing Metro has suspended the Sebastien Chabal for his outburst on French Top 14 referees; Chabal has retracted from his statements in a program on French Television RTL on Wednesday 27 April 2010.
Earlier in the week certain segment of the media reported him criticizing the abilities of the referees in Top 14 and also accused them of the favouring certain clubs in the French league. Chabal made the comments during an interview with the newspaper as
part of the promotional campaign for his upcoming autobiography “Ma petite étoile.”
The 33-year-old France back-row forward Sebastien Chabal was quick to apologies for his critical comments about referees as reported in the certain segment of the press. Besides Racing Metro’s suspension over the incident, the French Rugby Federation (FFR)
has also announced that it would be calling Sebastian Chabal to explain his comments on the standard of the refereeing.
FFR has demanded from the Rugby National League (LNR) disciplinary commission to summon Racing-Metro star to elaborate upon his comments in which he has questioned the refereeing standards and accused the French Top 14 referees on being biased.
Chabal in the televised program has apologized for his comments and termed them to be taken in out of the context at first place.
He said, “I’m sorry that this caused controversy. I’m sorry if people were hurt. I apologise for it because I didn’t want to attack anyone.”
Sebastian Chabal has also confirmed that his soon to be released autobiography talks about the Top 14 refereeing in good terms.
He said, “In my book I talk about refereeing in a good-natured way. There’s 10 pages or so and you can’t just take words like that out of context.”
Chabal termed refereeing a tough job and said that he would never take this job “for all the gold in the world.”
Chabal did however reiterated his opinion that the standard of the refereeing are poor in the Top 14 and certain changes are required to bring improvement in the overall performance of referees and to bring professionalism in the game.
Racing Metro’s suspension for Sebastian Chabal’s ends on May 11 and it’s expected that Disciplinary Commission will set their hearing for his controversial comments on the same date.
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