The president of the French Football Federation (FFF) and the general manager of the Paris Saint-Germain club are summoned, on Friday, to the Ministry of the Interior after the display of a pro-Palestine banner on Wednesday at the Parc des Princes by the supporters of the Parisian club, an action that will not but be sanctioned by the European Football Union (UEFA), informs AFP.
Philippe Diallo, the president of the FFF, and Victoriano Melero, the general director of PSG, “will be received by Othman Nasrou”, secretary of state responsible for the fight against discrimination within the ministry, according to a press release from the cabinet.
“UEFA’s disciplinary regulations prohibit the broadcasting of political messages of a provocative nature in stadiums,” writes Nasrou in a letter addressed to the FFF and PSG.
At the same time, UEFA will not initiate any disciplinary proceedings against the Paris Saint-Germain club for the pro-Palestinian message displayed by its supporters on Wednesday evening, before the match with Atletico Madrid in the Champions League, according to the continental football forum.
“There will be no disciplinary action, as the displayed banner cannot be considered provocative or insulting in this particular case,” the UEFA spokesperson clarified.
Article 16.4 of the disciplinary regulation of the European body allows the sanctioning of “any provocative message inappropriate for a sporting event” and in particular “any provocative message of a political, ideological, religious or insulting nature”.
It therefore does not ban all political proclamations from football stadiums, but only those deemed “provocative” or offensive, a criterion applied to, for example, homophobic banners and chants, as well as the monkey chants of Hungarian supporters during EURO 2020, emphasizes AFP.
At the Parc des Princes on Wednesday night, PSG’s ultra supporters unfurled a huge banner reading “Free Palestine” around the Paris team’s red and blue colors, with a bloodied Palestinian flag, the flag of Lebanon, Jerusalem, tanks or a person who wears a kefieh.
The huge canvas with drawings, which covered the entire Auteuil lawn, had a banner on top that read: “War on earth, but peace in the world”.
The French club assured in a statement that it had “no knowledge of the plan to display such a message” and specified that it is “firmly opposed to any message of a political nature in its stadium”.
Source: www.cotidianul.ro
