CThis is not a simple banner, a poster brandished by an activist lost in the middle of a crowd of supporters. This is what we call a “tifo”, a giant tarpaulin covering the entirety of a stand, deployed at the start or half-time of a match. It is supposed to represent the values of the supporters' clubs called the ultras. Sometimes violent, insulting, against the players of the opposing team, but rarely political like the one that was revealed, at the Parc des Princes, before the start of the PSG-Atletico de Madrid match.
Against the backdrop of a holed and bloodstained Palestinian flag, a man with his face covered in a keffiyeh approaches the slogan “ Free Palestine “. We also see a child carrying the Lebanese flag on his shoulders. To give a slight sporting character to the affair, the authors of this resounding political coup added a banner with a catch-all slogan: “War on the ground but peace in the world”. War and peace, hand in hand.
Pro-Hamas propaganda within PSG?
We would have liked to undermine the management of the Parisian club, which we could not have done worse. Imagine, at a time when Qatar is playing a central role in the negotiations for the establishment of a ceasefire in Gaza, and possibly in southern Lebanon, the club it owns is playing, in Paris, carrying them -pro-Hamas speech and provokes a controversy which his leadership would have done well without.
ALSO READ Homophobic and racist outbursts in stadiums: what solutions? Because how can we imagine that the PSG authorities ignored the preparation of an operation of such scale? How could this club, which is claimed to have an intelligence service capable of anticipating attacks on social networks, of protecting its players and managers against various and varied harassments, have missed this “tifo » incendiary and provocative? The club's management swears that it saw nothing coming, that it is ready to respond to any investigation that the executive power could initiate.
If she is telling the truth, the affair would perhaps be even more worrying, because it would mean that she allowed the venom of hatred and propaganda favorable to Hamas, a movement to flourish within her, without realizing it. Islamist terrorist, guilty of the barbaric pogrom of October 7, 2023. It is difficult to believe that what some sports journalists call a club-state would have embarked on this type of operation. In the midst of a sporting debacle in the Champions League, PSG needs serenity more than ever.
UEFA and its Pontius Pilate decision
This is undoubtedly why UEFA, the European football body, took the strange and scandalous decision of “no waves”, announcing that there would be no sanctions against the club. Parisian. It relies on article 16.4 of its disciplinary regulations which allows “any provocative message unsuitable for a sporting event” to be condemned. Paradox: in two strokes of the spoon, European leaders estimated that there was no provocative character in the pro-Palestinian tifo. For them, it would therefore only be a bluette, a song of love and peace, a few days, in Paris, of the high-risk France-Israel meeting.
To Discover
Kangaroo of the day
Answer
Despite protests from the government, Jewish associations, the cold anger of Bruno Retailleau, the intervention of the Paris police prefect who demands explanations and an investigation from the club's management, we are therefore asked to look away , to look elsewhere.
ALSO READ Qatar, a false friend for Ligue 1UEFA, by making this Pontius Pilate decision, is doing a disservice to football, nor to sport and its universal values of tolerance and respect. Behind this warlike tifo, the Qatari leaders will have to row to reverse the trend and bring some calm to a team that really needs it. We are not asking him to wage war, simply to score goals.
