The alleged “ethnic profiling” of PSG in the sights of justice. A Parisian investigating judge has been investigating for several months the possible ethnic registration of players at Paris Saint-Germain in the 2010s, after being informed by a complaint from the Human Rights League (LDH), we learned AFP on Wednesday from sources close to the matter.
Requested by AFP, the Paris prosecutor’s office confirmed having opened a judicial investigation in May in this case, already the subject of a first investigation, closed in August 2022. “PSG did not commit any discrimination, as demonstrated the parquet. The latter has already indicated that it has made 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, notably Mediapart and Special Envoy in France, revealed that the recruitment unit of the Parisian club had mentioned ethnic criteria between 2013 and 2018 in its evaluation sheets for young players, classified as “French” , “Maghrebi”, “West Indian”, “African”. PSG initially defended itself by explaining that the listing had been the result of a “personal initiative of the manager” of the “recruitment cell of the training center, 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 quickly, the daily L’Equipe produced a document according to which ethnic criteria also appeared on the files of the Ile-de-France unit. In the wake of the revelations, PSG launched an internal investigation which concluded that there had been “no proven case of discrimination”, despite the existence of ethnic registration and announced “measures aimed at strengthening ethical practices” within it.
After these revelations, the club was fined 100,000 euros in January 2019 by the disciplinary committee of the Professional Football League (LFP). Several club officials were also given suspended fines. In criminal proceedings, the LDH had filed a complaint against X for discrimination and collection and processing of personal data revealing racial or ethnic origins.
The criminal investigation was closed in August 2022 for “insufficiently characterized offense”, but the LDH filed a new complaint with the constitution 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 carried out by a section of the Paris prosecutor’s office”, commented Me Arié Alimi, lawyer for the LDH contacted by AFP. “The motivations question the positioning of this section, responsible in theory for combating discrimination and hate speech,” he added.
