The Auteuil stand in the Parc des Princes will be partially closed during a match, the Professional Football League (LFP) announced on Wednesday, October 30, to sanction homophobic chants sung by Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) fans during a championship game.
This sanction comes into force from November 5: the Auteuil stand will be open for the Lens reception on Saturday at 10my day, and will be partially empty against Toulouse on November 22.
On October 19, during the reception in Strasbourg on behalf of the 8my On the day (4-2), the Collectif Ultras Paris (CUP) sang a homophobic chant directed at the Marseille players for about ten minutes, eight days before the Ligue 1 “classic” between PSG and Olympique de Marseille ( OM). These slogans were taken up by a large part of the Parc des Princes. The stadium announcer intervened twice to stop them, but to no avail.
A smaller penalty than last year
Last year, the League’s disciplinary committee decided to take a more severe decision against PSG, for exactly the same events at the same time, by completely closing the stands for a match-fixed match and a suspended match.
This year, five days after the match against Strasbourg, the Minister of the Interior, Bruno Retailleau, announced that “two leaders” singing had been “identified”. But to date they have not been arrested. The investigation was entrusted to the Brigade for the Suppression of Personal Crimes (BRDP). After these songs, PSG had “reaffirmed its firm commitment against all forms of discrimination, including homophobia”in statements to Agence France-Presse
The National Ethics Committee referred the matter to the LFP for homophobic chants during last weekend’s matches (Marseille-PSG and Angers-Saint-Etienne), which will be examined by the disciplinary committee with a decision on November 6.
This sanction against PSG comes before the implementation of the announced measures to better attack the perpetrators. Last week a meeting dedicated to this issue was held at the Ministry of the Interior with the French football authorities (the FFF and the LFP) and the Minister of Sports, Gil Avérous.
The latter reminded that, in the event of homophobic chants, a meeting could be interrupted or suspended completely. This possibility appears in a FIFA circular dating from the 2019-2020 season. This measure is therefore not new, and Amélie Oudéa-Castéra and Roxana Maracineanu, the two ministers who preceded Mr. Avérous, had addressed the same request to the authorities.
Stopping matches, “is not the appropriate solution” for Bruno Retailleau
On August 16, 2019, a Ligue 2 match between Nancy and Le Mans became the first professional football match interrupted by a referee in France for homophobic chants. A stand at the Nancy stadium was then closed for a match.
But this proposal by Gil Avérous was immediately questioned by Bruno Retailleau, a supporter of a “temporary interruption”. “If there are homophobic chants, he said, The sports movement must assume its responsibilities, there must be a temporary interruption. Stopping games is very complicated, it is not the appropriate solution. »
The desire to establish a nominative ticket sale for OM, Olympique Lyonnais and PSG, already active in Paris according to the club, was also announced, while Bruno Retailleau wanted to introduce more records, algorithmic cameras and the arrival of plainclothes police officers. to the stadiums.
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A sign that homophobia is still widespread in French football is that during the 2022-2023 season the LFP disciplinary committee imposed some 202 sanctions for acts of discrimination, the vast majority of which were homophobic, during 175 games.
For several years, all L1 players wore a rainbow flocked jersey during championship day. Every year, some players refused to wear this jersey. Last season, the LFP decided to abandon this rainbow flocking for a League crest on the shirt.
