Homophobic chants were heard at the Parc des Princes on Sunday during the PSG-OM match. Behavior which was condemned by the Minister of Sports, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, and by the capital club.
A beautiful and clear victory on the field, but unacceptable chants in the stands. During the PSG-OM, Sunday September 24, the Parc des Princes, devoid of Marseille supporters deprived of travel, was the scene of new chants homophobic for long minutes. “It is unthinkable to remain deaf to such hateful and homophobic chants in our stands,” reacted Monday, September 25, the Minister of Sports Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, on X (ex-Twitter).
“No matter the rivalry and the stakes, they must be fought relentlessly by the supporters, the players in the competition, the authorities and the public authorities,” she writes again, also announcing that “the disciplinary committee” of the Professional Football League “is now seized”. She “guest” also PSG “to file a complaint to identify the perpetrators and bring them to justice, so that they are removed from the stadiums.”
For its part, Paris Saint-Germain also roundly condemned these chants. In a press release, the club “condemns all forms of discrimination, particularly homophobia, and wishes to point out that they have no place either in stadiums or in society.”
Even when denounced, these behaviors remain “overwhelming” according to Julien Pontes, spokesperson for the Collectif Rouge direct, who reports on Twitter “A level of homophobia in football [qui] is no longer tenable and calls for extremely firm reactions”. For franceinfo: sport, he returns to these facts of homophobia which are becoming commonplace within stadiums.
Franceinfo: sport: The homophobic chants heard during the PSG-OM match show once again that nothing is moving, despite the awareness-raising attempts put in place for several years.
Julien Pontes: We see a logical worsening of manifestations of homophobia in football stadiums because the law of impunity is systematic. Under these conditions, it is obvious that the phenomenon can only get worse. What the Professional Football League (LFP) does with its associative partners is what we call Pinkwashingthat is to say, pretending to act against homophobia.
More and more players are refusing to wear the rainbow jersey, born from the initiative. No player relays the wearing of this jersey on these social networks for example. It’s smoke and mirrors. And when we see a player, in this case Kévin N’Doram (FC Metz), say in front of the cameras that he and his team “play like fags [le 18 août 2023]“you see the level of ineffectiveness of what the LFP is proposing.
Meanwhile, in the Premier League, they are doing what should have been done for years, that is to say identifying the perpetrators of homophobia, calling them out, judging them and banning them from stadiums. On the videos of yesterday’s match, we can see supporters who are perfectly identifiable. When Madam Minister says: “Zero tolerance”, I answer: “Very well, let’s do like in England”.
Should the current sanctions be toughened (financial, grandstand closure, sometimes with suspended sentences) with a judicial and financial aspect for example?
Indeed, we need dissuasive financial sanctions for the clubs, which the LFP today refuses to take, especially when it comes to clubs as exposed, as rich and powerful as PSG. It’s always the same thing. It is not a suspended fine of 1,500 euros against a club, as OM had a few years ago, which will change things.
We made a proposal to the Minister about two weeks ago. We propose that there be during the matches, a tripartite commission with on one side the police, the national division for the fight against hooliganism, the security directors of the clubs, and also activists from LGBT associations (lesbians, gays, bis, trans, intersex, queer).
And then, when we hear what we heard yesterday at the Parc des Princes, the regulations provide for match stoppages. Normally, the referee must interrupt the match. Why was this rule not enforced? We are in a permanent anomaly with homophobia in football, with impunity. And this must stop.
How do you explain that the measures in place are not always applied, such as the match stoppages that you mention?
You have to ask the LFP the question. I believe that there is, at the same time, this desire not to worry and to create problems with “stories of homophobia”. The world of sport, federations, leagues, is very virilist. They do not have the intelligence to combat a problem of equal rights and dignity.
Would sanctioning supporter associations found guilty of homophobia be a possible and more effective sanction?
We are anything but anti-supporters. We don’t want to be completely repressive. For us, the primary responsibility is that of the club which must guarantee the safety and well-being of all spectators during matches. It is first up to them to act and unfortunately, they are not doing so.
Above all, we must carry out real information work with supporters, prevention, to make supporters understand what homophobia is. And afterwards, it will be more legitimate to have them convicted. But this is the responsibility of the League and the clubs. Without sanctions, prevention is zero, so now we need firm sanctions.
Can we say that he has a French particularity on homophobia in sport?
Yes, because there is no serious and sincere fight against homophobia in football. We remember, for example, the former president of the French Football Federation (FFF) Noël Le Graët, who boasted during the World Cup in Qatar of having been one of the “leaders” against the wearing of the One love armband, while all the other European federations, whether England, Scotland, Wales, Denmark and so on, all the European federations had resisted Fifa for wear the armband.
And France was apart. We had a very good overview of the culpable delay of French football authorities in the fight against homophobia. And that does not change since Philippe Diallo, the new president of the FFF, declares that there is no problem of homophobia in football.