“Partners” helped the Maccabi Haifa fans to take over the stands in Paris

Even Maccabi Haifa’s exciting seven to the net does not prevent Paris Saint-Germain fans from trying to learn from what was defined as a failure in the stands. No less than 6,580 Maccabi Haifa fans were present at Parc de France, more than 4 times the amount of tickets allocated to them – and in France they are still trying to understand how this happened.

Last night (Wednesday) a mini-investigation was published on the “Gol” website about the events in the stands, including quotes from PSG fans who were forced to wander from their permanent place in the stands, after the Maccabi Haifa fans who managed to purchase tickets to the PSG stands, were concentrated there One by the security guards and ushers in an attempt to prevent clashes between the fan camps.

“When we arrived at the entrance about an hour before the start of the game, there were already hundreds of Maccabi Haifa fans there,” said one of the PSG fans. “We entered the stadium wearing PSG shirts, we went to our regular places and the police said, ‘This is reserved for Maccabi Haifa fans, move to the other side.'”

Another fan said: “The security guards asked me if I was a fan of PSG or of Haifa, and after I said I was local, they sent me to other places in the stands. We saw hundreds of Israeli fans at the end of the stands, so we realized that the ushers were trying to gather all the Haifa fans for a sit-in Together. There wasn’t enough separation between the fan camps, and it could have turned violent and dramatic. Luckily for us, it passed peacefully.”

Take advantage of a loophole, and take control. Maccabi Haifa fans | Imagebank GettyImages, GEOFFROY VAN DER HASSELT

A PSG fan told about the “loophole” that led to the Haifa fans’ “takeover” of the stand: it turns out that many fans purchase subscriptions to the stand in question at a price ranging from 680 to 790 euros per year, and use the club’s second-hand ticket sales platform to earn large sums from tourists. Some of the holders of these subscriptions earn over 2,000 euros per year from selling tickets to tourists who wish to watch PSG games. “There are hundreds of contract holders in this stand whose feet have never set foot in the stadium. They are the ones who allowed the Haifa fans to take over the stand,” said one of the fans.

Also, according to estimates, the Haifa fans who purchased the tickets did so through French “collaborators” – since to order tickets through the platform on the team’s official website, you need to use a French credit card and purchase them within France.