PSG: the Auteuil stand closed for a match, reprieve for the players

Supporters had sung homophobic chants against OM, and players had taken up insulting refrains: PSG had the Auteuil stand closed on Thursday for a closed match and the four PSG players were sanctioned with one match suspended. The day after the disaster in Newcastle (4-1) during the 2nd day of the Champions League, the players Ousmane Dembélé, Randal Kolo Muani, Achraf Hakimi and Laywin Kurzawa, heard by videoconference, received a suspended match suspension for these insulting chants, the president of the disciplinary committee of the Professional Football League (LFP) told AFP. The sanction takes effect from October 10. The players will therefore be present on Sunday in Rennes.

During the match against OM on September 24, thousands of supporters - mainly the Ultras from the Auteuil stand - resumed homophobic chants for around ten minutes. For these facts, PSG was sanctioned by the closure of the Auteuil stand for one final match and one suspended match, said Sebastien Deneux. The stand will be empty against Strasbourg on October 21.

In a press release, the Parisian club regretted “an excessive and collective measure likely to undermine the work of dialogue and prevention undertaken (by PSG) with associative, institutional actors and supporters”. But he will not appeal the decision concerning his platform, he clarified. Contacted by AFP, the Collectif Ultras Paris (CUP), which occupies the Auteuil stand, did not wish to communicate.

At the final whistle of the PSG-OM match, the Parisian players gathered in front of the same Auteuil stand to celebrate the 4-0 victory. During these celebrations, four of them, Ousmane Dembélé, Randal Kolo Muani, Achraf Hakimi and Layvin Kurzawa, were seen chanting insults against their opponents of the day.

These players apologized on Sunday on social networks saying they “sincerely regret” their words, particularly with regard to their “duty to set an example”. The club's ethics representative, Malek Boutih, met this week with partner associations, the LFP and government officials to “strengthen the systems”, according to a source close to PSG.

Sunday evening, during the women's D1 clash between Paris SG and Olympique Lyonnais at the Parc des Princes, the Parisian ultras displayed a banner for several minutes in the Auteuil stand “Paris against discrimination and recovery”. At the same time, but in Rennes, other homophobic chants were heard at Roazhon Park during the Rennes-Nantes match. This case was also examined Thursday by the League's disciplinary commission. A sanction will be pronounced next Thursday, said Sébastien Deneux.

On August 16, 2019, a Ligue 2 match between Nancy and Le Mans became the first professional football match to be interrupted by a referee in France for homophobic chants. A stand at the Nancy stadium was closed for one match. “We must condemn this type of comments. I invite supporters to show more imagination. When I was young, I was also in these stands, I already heard the same chants,” Philippe Diallo, the president of the French Football Federation, told AFP last Saturday.

Like him, the Minister of Sports Amélie Oudéa-Castéra reiterated Thursday in an interview with Ouest-France that she condemned these chants. “We need individual sanctions and judicial bans from stadiums against the people who are the leaders,” she stressed. A sign that homophobia is still a widespread evil in French football, some 202 sanctions were taken last season by the LFP disciplinary committee for acts of discrimination, the vast majority of a homophobic nature, during 175 matches: 106 calls to order, 61 suspended fines, 34 firm fines and one grandstand closure (banners during Montpellier-Nantes).

Every year, a rainbow flocked jersey is worn by all L1 players during a championship day. Last year, some players refused to wear this jersey and therefore did not play for their club, attracting criticism from associations fighting against homophobia.