When third-placed Marseille host Ligue 1 pacesetters Paris Saint-Germain at the Vélodrome on Sunday night, it should be the football taking centre stage. Hardcore fans from both sides have contrived, however, to ensure that homophobia and thuggery strip the lustre from what will be an intriguing contest.
Marseille, under Roberto De Zerbi, have shown increasing guile and nous over the first eight games to be considered plausible title challengers to a PSG side still reconfiguring its identity without record goal-scorer Kylian Mbappé.
Off-field incidents have dominated the headlines too. Before the 5-0 win at Montpellier on 20 October, Marseille’s supporters were involved in clashes with police that left six officers injured.
A day earlier, during the 4-2 victory over Strasbourg at the Parc des Princes, PSG fans targeted Marseille and their recently recruited midfielder Adrien Rabiot for homophobic slurs.
Why? A decades-old rivalry between aspirational clubs and also a fiction of treachery: that after seven years at PSG and then five seasons at Juventus in Italy, Rabiot should want to ply his trade in Marseille.
Oui. Oui. Oui. Such fickleness demands invectives.
Venom
The homophobic chants spewed out from PSG’s Auteuil stand despite repeated calls over the public address system to stop the virulence.
French interior minister Bruno Retailleau condemned the behaviour.
“They should be severely punished,” he said of two alleged ringleaders who have been identified and who are likely to face prosecution.
“It has become unbearable. We can no longer put up with homophobic chanting. I won’t stand for it any longer,” Retailleau added.
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