French Football League president Frederic Thiriez defended his handling of the decision to postpone Marseille's Ligue 1 match at home to Paris St Germain because of swine flu - insisting he has no regrets.

The decision was taken to put the evening match back to another date after two PSG players - Ludovic Giuly and Mamadou Sakho - were diagnosed with the virus on Saturday, followed by confirmation of a third case in the squad and symptoms suffered by two members of the coaching team.

Following the late decision to postpone a fixture between two clubs with a history of tense rivalry, crowd trouble broke out on the streets of Marseille.

Thiriez has come in for criticism but remains confident he made the right call, having received expert medical advice.

"If I'd gone against the medical experts, people would have thought I was mad - or, worse in my position - trying to do the dirty on one of the clubs," he told L'Equipe.

"To suggest they [scenes of crowd disturbance] are linked to the match being put back is deliberately misleading.

"Unfortunately, these incidents were planned.

"It's hardly astonishing that matches can be postponed on the morning before an evening."

Thiriez was wary of all possible repercussions had he decided to allow the match to take place as scheduled.

"What would people have said if the match had gone ahead and the Marseille team had caught the virus?" he asked.

"The medical commission give us their professional opinion. We have to follow it as much as we can."

It is yet to be announced when the re-scheduled match will take place.

A decision on when to reschedule the match is likely to be announced on Thursday morning.

November 11 and December 2 have both been suggested, but international and Champions League fixtures around those dates mean both are already unlikely.

PSG coach Antoine Kombouare has made it clear his club will do all they can to arrange a new date which is mutually acceptable to Marseille.

He said: "I've had [opposite number] Didier Deschamps on the phone - and out of respect to Marseille, but especially because it's Didier, I told him 'try to find the best date for you, and we'll see if we can fall in with that'."

Latest indications are that the match may have to wait until January, February or even March.