PSG to face disciplinary board for racial profiling

Ligue 1 giants Paris Saint-Germain is facing possible disciplinary action by the French league for its scouts' use of racial profiling during the selection of players.

The French Football Federation ethics board said after hearings on Friday with PSG director general Jean-Claude Blanc and others that it decided to forward the case to the French league's disciplinary commission.

The federation's statement said the hearings established "that files mentioning an ethnic origin were indeed used in PSG recruitment cells until 2018." 

But the ethics board also backed PSG's position that there was no proven case of discrimination. French law prohibits the collection of personal data that shows the racial or ethnic origins of individuals.

PSG has acknowledged that forms with "illegal content were used between 2013 and 2018." But it declined responsibility for implementing the policy after the Mediapart news website reported that, up until this year, scouts were asked by PSG to mention the origin of possible recruits according to four categories: "Francais" (French), "Maghrebin" (North African), "Antillais" (West Indian), and "Afrique noire" (Black African).

The news comes at a terrible time for the Ligue 1 champions, who have accused of fraud in a shocking revelation made by Football Leaks. It is believed that European clubs Manchester City and Paris Saint-Germain have resorted to fraud to get around their own Financial Fair Play (FFP) rules.

According to the information, UEFA knowingly helped the clubs to cover up their own irregularities for ‘political reasons’ and it was done under the leadership of former Michel Platini and Gianni Infantino.

 It states that Paris Saint-Germain owned by Nasser Al-Khelaïfi received around 1.8 billion euros which helped them sign superstars Neymar Jr. and Kylian Mbappe and in the process, the huge sum of money enabled them to not breach the FFP rules.

The money was invested in the form of a sponsorship deal but it didn't comply with the market value. And ex-UEFA president Platini and current FIFA president but UEFA's general secretary back then, is said to have played a hand in the cover-up.

Former France president Nicolas Sarkozy is also said to be involved in the fraud. It's claimed that he encouraged Qatar to take over PSG and set up a new French television channel (beIN). In exchange, Platini helped Qatar get the rights to host the 2022 World Cup.

(PTI inputs)