2023-12-11 17:07:35
The announcement surprised, shocked and continues to cause talk in the world of football. This Sunday evening, in an interview given to the media Brut, the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin announced, against all expectations, that the Champions League match this Tuesday evening (6:45 p.m.) between RC Lens and Sevilla FC would be affected by a travel ban on Spanish supporters.
A late, sudden decision, which fails the 500 Sevillian supporters, according to estimates, who had planned their trip. This is therefore prohibited and the reasons were detailed this Monday morning, in the prefectural decree published by the prefect of Pas-de-Calais.
Among the reasons cited, beyond the overall context of violence in football stadiums in France and the “particularly high” risk of attack, the fact that the match will be played “at a sold-out crowd” or that the match is “identified at risk by the National Division for the Fight against Hooliganism (DNLH)”, the prefecture cites several precedents: “attempts at contact between independent Lensois supporters and Spanish supporters at the end of the first leg (…) in order to organize a fight », “the excesses and the brawl between Sevilla FC supporters and Arsenal supporters which occurred in the immediate vicinity of the Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan stadium following the match on October 25, 2023”, or even those “which occurred in Budapest before the start of the Europa League final on May 31, 2023 and which left several people injured.
Other more marginal elements are cited. Among them, “the sporting issue”, since one of the two teams will be eliminated from all European competitions at the end of the match, but also “the bonds of friendship between the supporters of Sevilla FC and those of the Liège club who , given the sporting stakes of the meeting and their geographical proximity, could make the trip.”
“How are we going to do for the Olympics if we can’t accommodate 300 Sevillians? »
While the Lensois ultras published a press release in solidarity with Spanish supporters on Sunday evening, Franck Haise regretted this late ban at a pre-match press conference on Monday. “I regret it first of all, especially since the information was late,” he declared. The draw took place at the end of August. The people who come from Spain have organized not a trip but a trip, and they are told no at the last moment… But what are we going to do for the Olympic Games if we can’t accommodate 300 Sevillians? There is still a real problem. »
In France, since the death of a Nantes supporter on the sidelines of the match between FC Nantes and OGC Nice on December 2, the decision was taken to ban all visiting supporters from traveling to high-risk matches until to December 18. However, the Council of State suspended several travel bans imposed for matches last weekend.
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