French soccer league Ligue de Football Professionnel (LFP) has condemned fans who took part in anti-LGBTQ+ chanting at a match over the weekend.
During Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) Football Club’s home match against RC Strasbourg on Saturday, PSG fans at Paris’s Parc des Princes stadium could be heard chanting “Les Marseillais c’est des pédés,” according to French newspaper Le Figaro. The homophobic taunt, directed at the team’s bitter rival Olympique de Marseille, translates to “people from Marseille are queers.”
Le Figaro reported that the chanting went on for several minutes, even as stadium announcers twice warned the crowd to stop. According to the Associated Press, PSG fans responded to the announcers’ warnings with jeers.
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The chanting was reportedly also directed specifically at Marseille midfielder Adrien Rabiot, who played for PSG from 2012 to 2019 and was reviled by the team’s fans as a traitor. Rabiot is not openly gay.
“These latest discriminatory chants made by Paris Saint-Germain supporters are unacceptable when, at the same time, the whole of professional soccer has been working to ban homophobic behavior and chants from stadiums,” LFP said in a statement.
The league’s disciplinary committee is looking into the incident and the French government has also condemned the chanting. French sports minister Gil Avérous will reportedly meet with LFP’s president this week to discuss measures to prevent similar anti-LGBTQ+ chanting at future matches.
As the AP reported last year, such chanting is common at LFP matches. In France, homophobic comments made in public are punishable by up to a year in prison and a 45,000 euro (about $49,000 U.S.) fine.
But authorities have struggled to figure out how to prevent anti-LGBTQ+ chanting at soccer matches. In 2019, the LFP launched a plan to distribute forms among spectators, allowing them to report sexist, homophobic, or racist incidents at matches.
The plan came in the wake of a similar 2019 incident in which PSG fans engaged in homophobic chanting during a match with Marseille. But it has clearly not done the trick. During another PSG/Marseille match last year, PSG fans again targeted the rival team with anti-LGBTQ+ chants, leading the league to close a section of the stadium stands behind one of the goals for two games.
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