The Paris prosecutor’s office dismissed, on August 19, its preliminary investigation opened in November 2018 against Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) for “discrimination based on origin, ethnicity or nationality” and “collection of personal data by a fraudulent, unfair or illicit means”, learned The world. “The procedure was closed without further action for lack of sufficiently serious infringement”confirms the Paris prosecutor’s office.
Entrusted to the brigade for the repression of delinquency against the person, this investigation had been triggered after the filing of a complaint against X by the Human Rights League for “discrimination” and “collection and processing of personal data revealing racial or ethnic origins”.
This complaint followed information from several European media, including Mediapart. On the basis of documents from the “Football Leaks”, this media collective had revealed the existence of forms, from 2013 to spring 2018, within the Parisian club “with illegal content”. These documents specified the” origin “ players supervised: ” French “, “Maghrebi”, “Caribbean”, “African”; or, “BC” for ” White “, “BK” for “Black”, “BR” for “Beur”, “M” for “mestizo” and “AS” for “Asian”.
PSG had acknowledged the facts, arguing however that it was a “personal initiative of the manager” of the “recruitment unit of the training center, dedicated to territories outside Ile-de-France”, Marc Westerloppe, who left for Rennes in early 2018. The club had also launched an internal investigation, conducted by a law firm from October 12 to November 14, 2018.
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This investigation, based “on the analysis of e-mail exchanges and on a series of interviews conducted with club employees in charge of recruiting the training center”came to the conclusion that“there has been no proven case of discrimination within Paris Saint-Germain”said the club.
In contrast, “This survey confirmed the establishment of sheets with an origin criterion during the 2013-2017 period. These sheets are on the own initiative of the person in charge of the province cell », the club wrote in a statement. But the daily The Team had since produced a document according to which ethnic criteria also appear on the files of the Ile-de-France cell. PSG had made a commitment to the Minister of Sports “on a new organization of the selection process and respect for ethics”.
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