French soccer club Paris Saint-Germain F.C. (PSG) will not face sanctions after supporters on Wednesday displayed a massive anti-Israel banner before a home game kicked off.
The decision was made by European soccer’s governing body UEFA, according to Reuters.
French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau criticized the unfurling of the banner on Thursday, calling it “unacceptable.” Asked by French radio station Sud Radio if he would seek sanctions against PSG, he said, “I am not ruling out anything. I will demand explanations from PSG.”
Before Wednesday night’s Champions League game against Atletico Madrid at Parc des Princes stadium in the French capital, fans in the stands from PSG’s hardline Auteuil Kop group unveiled the banner, which read “Free Palestine,” with the “i” depicted as a map of Israel covered in a Palestinian keffiyeh. A blood-stained Palestinian flag, a masked terrorist, a boy wearing a Lebanese flag, a tank and Jerusalem’s Dome of the Rock were also visible.
PSG said after the match that it was not privy to any plans to unveil the banner. The club is owned by Qatar, whose government funds Hamas in Gaza and harbors Hamas terror leaders.
“Paris St Germain recalls that the Parc des Princes is—and must remain—a place of communion around a common passion for soccer and firmly opposes any message of a political nature in its stadium,” the club said in a statement.
Minister Retailleau said: “Of course the club president is responsible. I want to know how this tarpaulin arrived, how it was deployed.”
UEFA told Reuters on Thursday that PSG would not face disciplinary proceedings because it only bans insulting or provocative messages considered political, religious or offensive.
“There will therefore be no disciplinary case because the banner that was unfurled cannot be in this case be considered provocative or insulting,” a UEFA spokesperson said.
Financial penalties for a first offense can be in the range of 10,000 euros ($10,700), the Associated Press reported.
Rabbi Menachem Margolin, the chairman of the European Jewish Association, wrote to UEFA President Aleksander Čeferin to protest the decision not to punish PSG. Margolin said the banner was antisemitic because it was “not a call for liberation. It is a call for Jewish eradication,” he wrote.
“If someone unfurled a huge banner with Ukraine under a Russian Flag would it be insulting or provocative, Mr. President? Or how about Slovenia under an Italian or Austrian Flag? You know the answer,” Margolin wrote.
Yonathan Arfi, the president of the Representative Council of the French Jewish institutions said the banner was “scandalous.”
“A map where the state of Israel no longer exists. A masked Palestinian fighter. This is not a message of peace but a call to hatred,” he tweeted. “The perpetrators of this banner must be punished! Intolerable!”
The incident came ahead of a Nov. 14 Nations League match between Israel and host France.
Scores of anti-Israel protesters burst into the French Football Federation offices in Paris on Monday and demanded the cancellation of the match.
