ANALYSIS – The C1 match between Paris and the Israeli champion gives rise to some concerns.
Football is a party. Unless it overflows… In this case, the authorities are particularly attentive before PSG-Maccabi Haifa this Tuesday (9 p.m.) and PSG has no intention of seeing this meeting of the fifth day of the Champions League turn into a political meeting. open air. The match was indeed rated level 3 out of 5 by the National Division for the Fight against Hooliganism (DNLH), which represents “risks of public order disturbances linked to a dispute between supporters“. This is less than the C1 duel between OM and Frankfurt in September (5 out of 5), at the Vélodrome, or than the recent PSG-OM (4 out of 5), at the Parc des Princes.
This will, however, put a good 1,000 law enforcement officials into action, as reported The Parisian and several other sources. “A reinforced police system combining mobile forces and units from the police headquarters will be deployed around the Parc des Princes but also throughout the capital and in particular on public transport in order to prevent possible clashes between Parisian and Israeli supporters.», We are told.
Reduced gauge in the visitor’s stand
Indeed, we know the penchant of a certain number of members of the Collectif Ultras Paris (CUP) for the Palestinian cause. Last August, against Montpellier, the CUP had also deployed a banner on which one could read this: “We hang out in strips like in Gaza». «We do not want to fall into the trap of violence or politicize our forums. We support the Palestinians as we were able to do for the Uyghurs. There is no desire to send political messages. We are here to animate our forum but we can also support people in difficulty“, underlines a leader of the Collective, for the daily The Team our colleagues slipping in passing that “Palestine flags, smoke bombs and possibly also banners should appear in Auteuil on Tuesday».
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How many Maccabi supporters to channel into the French capital? Difficult to assess. Obviously, the Israeli champion has a number of fans in France and in Ile de France. One thing is certain: the visitor’s stand will not be full during the match. UEFA requires organizing clubs to offer 5% of the capacity of their enclosure to opposing supporters, ie 2,400 places in the case of the Parc. Here, there will only be 1,650 supporters in this visitor’s stand. “The police headquarters worked closely with the organizer with regard to the risks associated with the match between PSG and Maccabi Haifa. This led the organizer to impose a gauge limiting access to the stadium to 1,650 Israeli supporters in the visitor’s stand.“, we are assured on the side of the police headquarters. Not enough for the mayor of Haifa, Einat Kalish, who asked her Parisian counterpart, Anne Hidalgo. What the Paris City Hall has confirmed to France Blue Paris explaining that he “aware of (his) concern“. PSG, however, did not hear of such steps according to our information.
For the rest, it is impossible to know how many Haifa supporters will be in the other stands. From Monday, we could already see them parading in the streets of the City of Light, on the eve of this decisive meeting for the two teams: leader in the Group H standings with eight points, as much as Benfica, PSG will aim to validate their ticket for the round of 16 while Maccabi Haifa (3 pts), who had “jostled (Paris) for 25-30 minutes one way“, according to Christophe Galtier, will aim to stay in the race for qualification.
November 23, 2006, evening of humiliation and drama
One thing is certain: the Israeli clubs do not only recall good memories at Paris Saint-Germain. Before the 3-1 victory in the first leg, the Rouge et Bleu had only a record of one success for three defeats and one draw in five games. Above all, no one has forgotten this November 23, 2006, an evening of humiliation against Hapoel Tel Aviv in the UEFA Cup (2-4), an evening of tragedy at Porte de Saint-Cloud with the death of a supporter , Julien Quemener. A member of the Boulogne stand, the latter had been fatally hit by a shot fired by Antoine Granomort, then a member of the regional transport police service (SRPT), who was trying to protect a French spectator of the Jewish faith attacked after the match. Water has flowed under the bridge since, the nazillons – a minority fortunately – that could be found in the orbit of the club having been exfiltrated over the years. But we understand that the various parties concerned are tense before this PSG-Maccabi Haifa…