Faced with the risk of clashes, Olympique de Marseille supporters are prohibited from traveling to attend the match at the Geoffroy-Guichard stadium on Sunday December 22.
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“A real and serious risk of clashes between supporters.“This is the reason given by the Minister of the Interior Bruno Retailleau, to prohibit the travel of OM supporters to Saint-Etienne, Sunday December 22.
The measure was published in a decree from the Ministry of the Interior published this Friday in the Official Journal. Supporters of Olympique de Marseille will therefore not be able to attend the match between AS Saint-Etienne and OM during the 32nd finals of the Coupe de France at the Geoffroy-Guichard stadium. In this decree, Bruno Retailleau recalls that OM travel is very frequently a source of disturbances to public order, “both by brawls between supporters and by violence against the police or the throwing of firecrackers, smoke bombs or agricultural bombs causing injuries or damage.” Moreover, “the disturbances to public order and the violent behavior of Saint-Etienne supporters during matches between ASSE and a club with which there is a particular rivalry persist in Saint-Etienne, despite the implementation of security measures. supervision of supporters’ movements by the prefect of the Loire”.
For Bruno Retailleau, the individual administrative and judicial ban measures which currently concern around twenty fans of each of the two clubs “have no effect on the prevention of brawls and serious disturbances to public order which regularly occur before and after the match on the route taken by bus convoys of visiting supporters and around the stadium, especially that their authors are not always identifiable”. It therefore considers that neither the decree of the prefect of the Loire banning parking, driving on public roads and access to the Geoffroy-Guichard stadium and the city center of Saint-Etienne for OM supporters, nor the mobilization of law enforcement, “can no longer be sufficient to prevent these risks”.
Especially since the police will at the same time already be in great demand, according to the minister, by the Coupe de France meetings Le Puy-Montpellier and Haut Lyonnais-Toulouse on Saturday, as well as by the protection of the Christmas market of Saint-Etienne, where a man armed with knives was shot dead by a municipal police officer on November 26.
This is not the first time that Marseille supporters have been banned from traveling. There have been several precedents, the latest already concerning Saint-Etienne: on December 8, a championship match between the two teams was affected by the same measure. This was justified by serious disturbances that occurred during the two matches of the 2018-2019 season and a match in Saint-Étienne, on February 5, 2020, where eight police officers were injured.
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