French football's disciplinary watchdogs were on Monday considering sanctions against Angers after home fans threw smoke bombs onto the pitch during Sunday's 2-0 defeat to Toulouse. Angers slumped to their 21st defeat in the 27 matches played this season.
The game at the Stade Raymond Kopa was halted for eight minutes just after half-time to repair the damage to one of the nets which was burned when fans launched missiles towards the net of Angers goalkeeper Paul Bernardoni.
The disciplinary commission of the Ligue de Football Professionnel – which organises the top two divisions in France – will announce its decision within the week.
Any sanction will add to the litany of problems facing Angers' bosses.
Fans unfurled banners around the town before the game and in the stadium decrying the management of the club.
Some supporters want the president Saïd Chabane to resign for overseeing a disastrous campaign which has left Angers bottom of Ligue 1 and on the verge of relegation to Ligue 2 with just 10 points from 27 games.
Sunday's defeat to Toulouse was the club's 19th consecutive match without a win.
Supporters in the Kop de la Butte 1992 organised a demonstration before the match.
📢 L’horaire du rassemblement a été décalé à 12h.
— Kop De La Butte 1992 (@KDLB92) March 9, 2023
D’autres informations suivront ➡️#OneKDLB https://t.co/F3ghlYncCG
Though that rally of around 100 fans passed off peacefully, inside the stadium tempers flared as the team slumped to yet another defeat.
"Their anger is justified," Chabane conceded during an interview with the French broadcaster Prime Video.
"This year, there have been so many negative things, that we can say that all the decisions we made were bad.
"I take my share if not all the responsibility."
Impending court case
Last Tuesday, head coach Abdel Bouhazama quit over remarks made in his team talk before the Ligue 1 game against Montpellier on 5 March.
Bouhazama, who took over in January, appeared to play down an impending court case involving the defender Ilyes Chetti and a woman in an Angers nightclub.
"We can't laugh about everything, we can't say everything and we can't trivialize what we can say between two people on a bar counter or something else," said Chabane.
"The words used by Abdel were neither justified nor excusable."
Angers, under interim coach, Alexandre Dujeux, travel to third placed Lens on Saturday.
Lens, 4-0 winners at Clermont on Sunday, moved to within two points of second-placed Marseille who let slip a 2-0 lead in the last five minutes to draw with Strasbourg.
The stalemate allowed Paris Saint-German to increase their lead to 10 points with 11 games remaining.
Kylian Mbappé scored a stoppage-time winner to give the champions a 2-1 victory at Brest.
The victory offered Christophe Galtier's men some succour after their elimination from the Champions League on Wednesday night.
PSG lost 2-0 at Bayern Munich to exit European club football's most prestigious competition at the last-16 stage for the fifth time in seven years.
