Benoît Bastien (born 17 April 1983) is a French professional

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

referee A referee is an official, in a variety of sports and competition, responsible for enforcing the rules of the sport, including sportsmanship decisions such as ejection. The official tasked with this job may be known by a variety of other titl ...

. He has been a full international for

FIFA FIFA (; stands for ''Fédération Internationale de Football Association'' ( French), meaning International Association Football Federation ) is the international governing body of association football, beach football and futsal. It was found ...

since 2014.FIFA. [https://www.fifa.com/development/education-and-technical/referees/association=fra/index.html "France: Referees"] .

Controversies

Benoît Bastien is widely known in

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...

for his wrong decisions against the Romanian teams

CFR Cluj Fotbal Club CFR 1907 Cluj, commonly known as CFR Cluj ( or ), is a Romanian professional association football, football club based in the city of Cluj-Napoca, Cluj County, which competes in the Liga I. It was founded in 1907 as ''Kolozsvári Vas ...

and

FCSB Fotbal Club FCSB (), commonly known as FCSB, is a Romanian professional Association football, football club based in Bucharest. It has spent its entire history in the top flight of the Romanian football league system, Romanian league system, t ...

. He was accused of

racism Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism ...

and

xenophobia Xenophobia () is the fear or dislike of anything which is perceived as being foreign or strange. It is an expression of perceived conflict between an in-group and out-group and may manifest in suspicion by the one of the other's activities, a ...

to the Romanians by the fans of these clubs after multiple eronated decisions in two games involving the teams, some of them being described as ”intentional”.

Young Boys 2-1 CFR Cluj

The first incident took place on December 10, 2020, in the last matchday of the group stage of the UEFA Europa League season 2020-21. During a football match between the Swiss side Young Boys and the Romanian side

, he gave a penalty for the Swiss team in the 90th minute and sent off CFR's goalkeeper

Cristian Bălgrădean Cristian Emanuel Bălgrădean (; born 21 March 1988) is a Romanian professional football (soccer), footballer who plays for Liga I club CFR Cluj as a Goalkeeper (association football), goalkeeper. Since making his debut in the first division in ...

, after an alleged foul on the YB's centre-back

Cédric Zesiger Cédric Zesiger (born 24 June 1998) is a Swiss professional footballer who plays as a centre-back for Bundesliga club VfL Wolfsburg and the Switzerland national team. Club career On 29 June 2019, it was confirmed that Zesiger had signed a fou ...

. At that moment, CFR Cluj was leading 1-0, thanks to a goal scored by Gabriel Debeljuh in the 84th minute. Before the last matchday, CFR Cluj was on the third place, with five points, and needed a victory against Young Boys to qualify further. Subsequently, at that score, the Romanian side was on the second place, one point above Young Boys. Jean-Pierre Nsame went on and scored the equaliser from the penalty kick in the 93rd minute, sending Young Boys on the second position again. Moreover, Young Boys went on and scored again in the 96th minute. The match was supposed to end after 95 minutes, but it went over and Bastien stopped almost before the 100th minute mark. Group statistics if CFR Cluj would have won 1-0, the score in the 93rd minute.

West Ham United 3-1 FCSB

The second incident took place two years later, on September 8, 2022, in the first matchday of the 2022-23 UEFA Europa Conference League group stage. The English side

West Ham United West Ham United Football Club is an English professional football club that plays its home matches in Stratford, East London. The club competes in the Premier League, the top tier of English football. The club plays at the London Stadium, hav ...

and the Romanian side

, the latter one having the first appearance in the group stage of an international cup in five years, were disputing a match. FCSB was leading 1-0 in the 64th minute, when Benoît Bastien gave a very controversed penalty for the English side, after

Maxwel Cornet Gnaly Albert Maxwel Cornet (born 27 September 1996) is an Ivorian professional footballer who plays as a winger and full-back for Premier League club West Ham United and the Ivory Coast national team. He has previously played in France for Me ...

crashed into the Romanian side goalkeeper, injuring both himself and FCSB's goalkeeper Ștefan Târnovanu. FCSB players protested for multiple minutes, but Bastien continued with the penalty, with

Jarrod Bowen Jarrod Bowen (born 20 December 1996) is an English professional footballer who plays as a winger or forward for club West Ham United and the England national team. He has previously played for Hereford United and Hull City. Early life Bowe ...

equalising from the penalty spot. A despondent FCSB side went on and lost 1-3, failing to win any match in the campaign and suffering tremendous defeats against both West Ham (0-3 in

Bucharest Bucharest ( , ; ro, București ) is the capital and largest city of Romania, as well as its cultural, industrial, and financial centre. It is located in the southeast of the country, on the banks of the Dâmbovița River, less than north of ...

) and the Danish side

Silkeborg Silkeborg () is a Danish town with a population of 49,747 (1 January 2022).Silkeborg Silkeborg () is a Danish town with a population of 49,747 (1 January 2022).Bucharest Bucharest ( , ; ro, București ) is the capital and largest city of Romania, as well as its cultural, industrial, and financial centre. It is located in the southeast of the country, on the banks of the Dâmbovița River, less than north of ...

). After the match, Bastien's

Wikipedia Wikipedia is a multilingual free online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and using a wiki-based editing system. Wikipedia is the largest and most-read refer ...

page was raided by Romanians, calling him slurs and fixing his death location as "

Ghencea Ghencea is a district of the Romanian capital city Bucharest, in Sector 5 (Bucharest), Sector 5. It is home to the famous sports club CSA Steaua București. Nearby districts are Drumul Taberei and Rahova. History Construction of apartment blocks s ...

", and, as a result, Wikipedia had to block everyone from editing his page. He also received numerous threats, both from FCSB and

fans.

References

External links

* * * * 1983 births Living people Sportspeople from Épinal French football referees UEFA Europa League referees 21st-century French people 20th-century French people {{France-footy-bio-stub