The Ligue 1 match between Montpellier and Clermont on Sunday was abandoned in stoppage time after the visitors' keeper was targeted by a firecracker.<br /><br />Clermont's Mory Diaw fell to the ground when the firecracker, thrown from the Etang de Thau tribune where Montpellier fans sit, exploded next to him, before being carried off on a stretcher.<br /><br />Referee Florent Batta sent the players to the dressing- room before deciding not to resume the game.<br /><br />'After a firecracker was thrown near the visiting goalkeeper, the player collapsed to the ground,' Batta told reporters.<br /><br />'For the safety of the players, I asked everyone to return to the dressing room. We set up a crisis unit. The doctor who examined the Clermont goalkeeper found that he was not fit to resume the match. As a result, the match was definitively abandoned.'<br /><br />Montpellier was leading 4-2 when the firework was thrown in the first minute of six minutes of injury time, and Diaw fell to the ground and received treatment before being taken off.<br /><br />A few minutes later, the players went back to their locker rooms. <br /><br />The match was then definitively called off without the remaining stoppage time being played.<br /><br />After Diaw fell, Clermont defender Neto Borges was shown a red card after a video replay showed him making a middle finger gesture towards the Montpellier fans.<br /><br />Montpellier president Laurent Nicollin told sports daily L'Equipe's website that the person who threw the fireworks was arrested and that he would be banned from the stadium.<br /><br />It remained uncertain whether the French league would award Montpellier the win.
