PSG: a judge investigates after a complaint against the “ethnic registration” of players from the 2010s

The alleged “ethnic profile” of PSG in the crosshairs of justice. A Parisian investigating judge has been investigating for several months the possible ethnic registration of Paris Saint-Germain players in the 2010s, after being informed by a complaint from the League for Human Rights (LDH), the AFP learned on Wednesday from close sources to the question.

At the request of the AFP, the Paris prosecutor’s office confirmed that it had opened a judicial investigation in May into this case, which had already been the subject of a first investigation, closed in August 2022. “PSG has not committed any discrimination, as it has demonstrated the parquet. The latter has already indicated that it has carried out a classification without further action in this case”, reacted the club, defended by Me Antoine Maisonneuve.

“French”, “Maghrebi”, “West Indian”, “African”

At the end of 2018, a media collective, namely Mediapart and the special correspondent in France, revealed that the recruitment unit of the Parisian club had mentioned ethnic criteria between 2013 and 2018 in its evaluation sheets of young players, classified as “French”, “Maghrebi”, “Indian”, “African”. PSG initially defended itself by explaining that the quotation was the result of a “personal initiative of the manager” of the “recruitment cell of the training centre, dedicated to territories outside Ile-de-France”, directed at the time by Marc Westerloppe. , who left at the beginning of 2018 for Stade Rennes.

But the newspaper L’Equipe immediately published a document according to which ethnic criteria also appear in the archives of the Ile-de-France unit. In the wake of the revelations, PSG launched an internal investigation which concluded that there had been “no substantiated case of discrimination” despite the existence of an ethnic registration and announced “measures to strengthen ethical practices” at its interior.

After these revelations, the club was fined €100,000 by the Professional Football League (LFP) disciplinary commission in January 2019. Several club officials were also given suspended fines. As part of criminal proceedings, LDH had filed a complaint against X for discrimination and the collection and processing of personal data revealing racial or ethnic origins.

The criminal investigation was closed in August 2022 for an “insufficiently qualified crime”, but the LDH presented a new complaint with the establishment of a civil party at the beginning of 2023. “We are very satisfied that this procedure has been opened, despite the classification without further action by a section of the Paris prosecutor’s office”, commented Me Arié Alimi, a lawyer for the LDH contacted by AFP. “The reasons call into question the positioning of this section, responsible in theory for the fight against discrimination and to hate speech,” he added.