Darmanin twists the public freedoms of supporters of Seville, the furious Andalusian club – Libération

2023-12-11 00:34:14

In order to supposedly create “an electric shock”, the Minister of the Interior announced that he wanted to prohibit visitors from traveling to the North during the Lens-Seville football match on Tuesday, December 12 in the Champions League. A decision that Sevilla FC wishes to firmly contest.

The government is not only suppressing the public freedoms of French football supporters. But also those living in Spain. This Sunday, Gérald Darmanin announced that fans of the Spanish football club Seville will not be able to travel to Lens on Tuesday December 12 for a Champions League match. “I am going to prohibit Seville supporters from coming to Lens,” declared the Minister of the Interior, during an interview with the online media Brut, when he was questioned about the travel bans on supporters following the death of a Nantes fan in an altercation on December 2 with Nice supporters, for which a VTC driver was indicted and imprisoned.

For Darmanin, these events “raise the particular question of football”, a sport where “the supporters, not all but a small part, are the most violent”, estimated Gérald Darmanin before adding that “we do not have that for other sports. And, defying logic, the Minister of the Interior decided to ban the travel of all Spanish supporters, because of this “small part”. With an argument which presages a possible annulment of this decision at the administrative court or even at the Council of State, as happens regularly, recall supporter defense associations.

The decision to ban a priori supporters who have not committed any offense is not to the taste of Sevilla FC. In a press release, the Andalusian club protested against a measure which “harms its supporters in particular and football in general, with disproportionate measures which do not seem justified”. Stressing that it had received “no official communication from either the French authorities or UEFA”, the club management added that it was in contact with the Spanish government to try to obtain the lifting of this ban and indicated that she was going to turn to UEFA, the European football body.

“Prohibiting the movement of supporters from Seville to Lens represents a violation of Articles 21 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU and 45 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU”, considers FASFE, an association representing the interests of supporters football beyond the Pyrenees, which also appeals to the Spanish government.

Apologies from French supporters

This ban concerns a crucial match for the European future of the two teams: the meeting on this last day of the group stage of the Champions League will determine which of Lens or Sevilla will finish 3rd and thus continue their journey in the Europa League. Which did not prevent the ultra Lens group of the Red Tigers from supporting their one-night adversaries: “You despise football and its supporters on classist and populist bases,” they lambasted in a press release addressed to Darmanin, and this travel ban order taken against Sevillian supporters only serves to mask your inability to organize and supervise sporting events”, the group recalling the fiasco at the Stade de France during the Champions League final in 2022.

But the decision comes after the government decided to accelerate collective punishments, the Minister of Sports, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, having even declared herself on Tuesday in favor of “a moratorium on the travel of supporters”, by December 18. She “took this position after consulting me with the president of the League [de football professionnel] to create an electric shock,” Gérald Darmanin tried to justify this Sunday, less than eight months before the start of the Olympic Games in Paris. An “electric shock” which the hundreds of Spanish supporters, who committed no crime and spent a certain amount of money to see their team play football, would have gone well with. On