The turn was expected, but it is confirmed, and it is tight. Following the death of a Nantes supporter, stabbed on December 2 during a scuffle with Nice fans and the VTC drivers who transported them, the Minister of Sports, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, said she was favorable to “a moratorium on fan travel”. This Friday, at Official newspaperthe Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, has published a decree which prohibits fans of eight clubs from going to their team’s “away” match this weekend.
According to the decree, these meetings present a “real and serious risk of clashes between supporters”in a context “of an exacerbation of the increasingly serious violence observed since the start of the football sports season”.
Five matches from the fifteenth day of Ligue 1 (Montpellier-Lens, this Friday; PSG-Nantes, Saturday; Nice-Reims, Lyon-Toulouse and Lorient-Marseille, Sunday) and three matches from the eighth round of the Coupe de France (Angoulême -Bordeaux, Saint-Etienne-Nîmes and Troyes-Auxerre, Saturday) are affected by these travel bans.
Two men were indicted
Incidents have been increasing since the start of the 2023-2024 season in and around French stadiums. On Wednesday December 6, Lyon supporters had already been banned from traveling to Marseille, to attend the OM-OL match, a meeting postponed after the stone crushing, on October 29, of the buses of Lyon players and their supporters, en route to the Stade-Vélodrome. The former OL coach, the Italian Fabio Grosso, was seriously injured in the face. The same day, Nazi salutes and monkey cries were reported in the visitor park – welcoming Lyon fans – at the Stade-Vélodrome.
Two men were indicted on Thursday, December 7, for “provocation of racial hatred and racial insults”. Aged 33 and 34, they were placed under judicial supervision, including “ban on attending official or friendly OL matches”, “half-time scoring obligation” of these meetings and “ban on appearing in Marseille”, according to the press release from the Marseille prosecutor’s office. They are suspected of being members or close to a group of ultra supporters of Olympique Lyonnais called Mezza Lyon, an entity linked to the extreme right, not recognized by OL.
On December 18, a meeting bringing together the National Supporterism Authority, the Professional Football League (LFP) and the ministries of the interior, justice and sports is planned in an attempt to ease tensions in the stadiums of football and their surroundings.