PSG punished by UEFA for abuse of disabled Chelsea fans

The club will have to close sectors 104 and 105 of the Parc des Princes during their next European home game, said UEFA, which will be in the group stages of this coming season's Champions League.

“The sanction has been imposed for the discriminatory conduct of some Paris Saint-Germain supporters towards disabled fans of Chelsea,” UEFA’s control, ethics and disciplinary board said in a statement.

The incident came during the first-leg Champions League quarter-final match between PSG and Chelsea in Paris on April 2.

A group of disabled Chelsea fans – who were seated among the home supporters due to a lack of facilities in the visitors’ stands – were subjected to a hail of abuse, spat on, and pelted with plastic bottles, according to reports in British media.

“It seemed like I was sitting in hell and it was something that I had no control over,” Chelsea supporter Lisa Hayden, a wheelchair user, recently told the BBC.

“I felt no-one had our backs: there were 10 of us and thousands of them and I didn’t think we were going to get out of there,” she added.

PSG ‘surprised and shocked’ by decision

PSG said in a press release it would appeal the decision.

“Paris Saint-Germain is surprised and shocked by this unjust decision and has asked UEFA to provide the reasoning behind it,” said the club.

Disabled fans’ rights campaigners hailed UEFA’s ruling, however.

“We welcome the determined decision taken by UEFA which sends a clear message to all clubs that abuse of disabled fans will not be tolerated,” Joyce Cook, head of the Centre for Access to Football in Europe, said in a statement emailed to the AFP news agency.

She highlighted the problem of a lack of facilities for disabled people at many football grounds.

“This was a particularly unpleasant incident with the Chelsea disabled fans abused and threatened by a minority of home fans whom they were confronted by based on being in the wrong place through no fault of their own,” she said.

“This could have happened at a number of European clubs where disabled away fans have no choice but to sit with the opposing home fans.”

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)