“Access to the Parc des Princes has also been prohibited since Wednesday, and for an indefinite period, to the group of CUP supporters outside of match days,” specified the Ministry of the Interior this Friday, November 8. A tifo with the message “Free Palestine” was displayed in the stadium on Wednesday during the defeat against Atlético Madrid.
Paris SG promised upstream control of the tifos “to ensure the absence of messages of a political nature”AFP learned this Friday, November 8 after a meeting between the club, the French Football Federation (FFF) and the government. Wednesday, before PSG's defeat by Atlético Madrid (2-1) in the Champions League, the Collectif ultras Paris (CUP) deployed a tifo at the Parc des Princes with the message “Free Palestine”, around the colors red and blue of the capital club, with a bloody Palestinian flag, the flag of Lebanon, tanks and even a person wearing a keffiyeh. Beauvau also indicates in a press release to consider “the ban on tifos within the Auteuil stand until the end of the calendar year”. “Access to the Parc des Princes has also been prohibited since Wednesday, and for an indefinite period, to the group of CUP supporters outside of match days”it is specified.
The immense canvas bearing drawings and covering the entire Auteuil stand topped a banner “War on the ground but peace in the world”. The FFF, represented by its director of institutional and international relations Erwan Le Prévost, and the PSG, with the general director Victoriano Melero, were received by the Minister of Sports, Gil Avérous, the Secretary of State in charge of citizenship and the fight against discrimination Othman Nasrou, as well as by the Paris police prefect Laurent Nunez. “A frank and constructive dialogue made it possible to identify solutions that PSG is committed to putting in place from the next match organized at the Parc des Princes”indicated the minister's entourage to AFP.
PSG thus promised to “strengthen the banner control process and ban those that have not been validated”according to another source close to a participant from the Parisian club. The CUP has no “did not respect the rules”according to the same source, and PSG should announce in the near future “a number of other sanctions”.
“If the club's response is insufficient, it will be open to interpretation […]. If there are no sanctions, the Ministry of the Interior will not be satisfied with them”further assured Othman Nasrou, according to a participant, emphasizing that Beauvau would be “attentive to the proper application of sanctions”. The day before, UEFA for its part assured that it would not initiate any proceedings against PSG, considering that “the banner displayed could not be considered provocative or insulting in this specific case”.
