Luxembourg boss stands by decision to play Gerson Rodrigues ahead of Ireland clash
Defiant Luxembourg boss Luc Holtz insisted he would not be swayed on his decision to continue selecting Gerson Rodrigues after the player lost an appeal against his sentence for assaulting a former girlfriend.
Rodrigues was handed an 18-month suspended sentence after being found guilty of beating his partner at the time, former Miss Luxembourg Emilie Boland, in an incident in November 2022, and was also convicted of two other assaults.
He failed in an appeal against the punishment in April and was subsequently selected by his country to play against Slovenia at the Stade de Luxembourg on Friday night amid angry protests, and is in line to face the Republic of Ireland on Tuesday evening.
Asked if the issue had been a distraction for he and his players, Holtz said: "No. The focus from the team is only on the pitch. All that is not on the pitch does not distract the players. It's not a distraction, no."
Pressed on whether the protests would affect his team selection for the Ireland game, he said: "That's nothing to interest the team of the coach. The focus is on the pitch and everything outside the pitch does not distract the team and has not distracted the team."
When Holtz was asked further what message that sent out, press officer Marc Diederich stepped in and said Rodrigues had received his punishment from the court and should not be punished twice.
When he in turn was asked if that meant it was OK, Diederich replied: "No, it's not OK. Nobody says that. But he got a second chance from the court and we gave him also a second chance.
"But we said clearly to him, it should never happen again. That's the reason."
The Luxembourg football association, the Federation Luxembourgeoise de Football, issued an apology to supporters for the way in which the protests were handled during the 1-0 defeat by Slovenia after stewards were tasked with removing banners "deemed to violate FIFA/UEFA regulations", but went too far because of "an unfortunate confusion occurred in the communication between the FLF General Secretariat and security officials".
An FLF statement read: "We sincerely apologise to all those involved. We re-affirm our commitment to guaranteeing full freedom of opinion for all fans of football and our national team, whether outside or inside a football stadium.
"We are drawing the necessary lessons from this at the board of directors to ensure that such incidents do not recur in the future. We hope that many of our supporters will attend the Luxembourg-Republic of Ireland match next Tuesday."
AVS striker Rodrigues, 29, scored the only goal when Luxembourg beat Ireland in a World Cup qualifier at Aviva Stadium in March 2021.
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