Paris FC-Olympique Lyonnais: new night in hell for French football

Images of chaos and an immense feeling of fed up. After a lively first half on the pitch, contested in a beautiful atmosphere in the stands, events quickly took a worrying turn this Friday, December 17, at the Sébastien Charléty stadium.

A few minutes after the Lyon equalizer of Moussa Dembélé (44th) against the local team of Paris FC, several individuals – PSG supporters hit with an IDS (stadium ban) at the Parc des Princes, according to The team – have managed to infiltrate close to Lyon fans. A state of affairs made possible in particular by the weakness of the security system (low number of stewards, visitor parking only delimited by a plexiglass). The words of several witnesses and the CCTV footage established that they arrived armed with iron bars, and even a nunchaku. At around 9:50 p.m., an agricultural bomb was thrown in the visitor’s parking lot, causing the situation to escalate and causing an outbreak of violence.

In the process, a fringe of Lyon supporters, obviously not unhappy with the fight, responded to the violence with violence. They broke the plexiglass partition to go and attack the spectators in the adjoining gallery, where there were families and many children. Note that, according to information from The team, 200 of the 500 Rhone supporters present in the yard were classified at risk. There followed hallucinating scenes, with hooded individuals who attacked spectators without any distinction. Several smoke bombs were also sent to the public. This created a huge crowd movement, with spectators from the stand close to the incidents who then descended on the lawn to get away from the danger, before returning to the stands. These incidents left two injured, a police officer and a supporter, said the police at the end of the evening, who did not make any arrests.

At that point, the referee and the players who were going to kick off the second period returned to the locker room. To never come out. After forty minutes, the meeting was definitively stopped, with a score of 1-1.

After these sad events, the reactions were quick to burst, starting with that of the Minister Delegate in charge of Sports, Roxana Maracineanu. In a message addressed to the president of the French Football Federation (FFF), Noël Le Graët, she expressed the strong dissatisfaction of the government and called for firm and rapid action. “She intends that I take my responsibilities”, recognized Noël Le Graët in an interview with The team, Saturday, adding that he was counting the “do it quickly”. In the process, the FFF announced that the Disciplinary Commission would meet “urgently, early next week, to open the investigation of a disciplinary file”. “Disciplinary decisions will be taken the following week, before the round of 16 of the competition (January 2 and 3, 2022)”, specified the instance.

A few hours earlier, at the end of the Friday evening, Jean-Michel Aulas had recognized events “drama for football”. “I don’t know exactly what happened yet. I believe the responsibilities are shared.”, affirmed the president of OL, involved for the second time in less than a month in overflows in the stands (bottle throwing at Dimitri Payet during OL-OM, on November 21).

“If our supporters are involved, they will be severely sanctioned”, he hammered, announcing that the Rhone club was going to file a complaint. With this in mind, the Rhone club banned “until further notice” the movement of its groups of supporters for away matches. “More than ever, we must eradicate these phenomena of hooliganism and banish all those who are enemies, by their acts, of football, but also of the clubs they claim to be”, adds the press release released this Saturday. In contrast, “OL do not have to take full responsibility for the incidents. There has been a chain of events”, point “JMA”.

A finding that his Paris FC counterpart has hardly tasted. “The origin of the incidents is obvious, even if the Olympique Lyonnais has already had to offer a version to sleep standing up”, squeaked Pierre Ferracci. “I am disillusioned and angry, because there was a beautiful party in Charléty. We had a lot of people […] and many children. And then a bunch of morons ruined everything as usual. This bunch of morons are the Lyon ultras “, again lambasted the president of the Parisian club. “Jean-Michel Aulas must stop with shared responsibilities, this is not true. It is pure and simple madness”, he hammers. And the president of the PFC to conclude: “instead of insulting each other in the public square, the clubs, including OL and OM, would do well to clean up”.

After these overflows, which follow those of Angers-OM, Nice-OM or OL-OM, the two clubs involved risk big. Olympique Lyonnais, in the sights of French football authorities, could pay dearly for the behavior of a certain fringe of its supporters. In addition to travel bans, which Rhone leaders have already taken, the club could be subject to a significant fine. Some observers even believe that OL could lose their 32ᵉ Coupe de France final on the green carpet.

Be careful, however, the picture is not much brighter for Paris FC. The limits of Charléty’s security system did indeed come to light on Friday. Lack of stewards, poorly supported excavations, dubious protection of the parking lot and the surrounding stands … there were many faults. Even if they do not explain it, nor justify it, the enormous security flaws of the Charléty stadium have undoubtedly allowed the violence. Verdict in the coming weeks. In the meantime, the Paris prosecutor’s office announced on Saturday the opening of an investigation for willful violence within a sports venue resulting in incapacity for work less than or equal to eight days.