Incisive PSG article - UK Independent

[Mel Brennan]

Paris prepares to fall – and the rest of France cheers (http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/news-and-comment/john-lichfield-paris-prepares-to-fall-ndash-and-the-rest-of-france-cheers-811816.html)

Saturday, 19 April 2008

There is a mocking English football chant: "You're just a small town in London/Liverpool/Manchester". Paris, in football terms, may be about to become a small town in its own right.

If Fulham are relegated, London will be down to its last four Premier League teams. If Paris St-German are relegated, which looks increasingly likely, the French capital will have no teams at all in Ligue 1.

Paris, capital of the vice-champions of the world, will be the only major European capital with no club in the top flight of national football.

It has been a calamitous week and a calamitous season for PSG, a club who seem to lurch from humiliation to disgrace to crisis. On Friday, the French interior ministry ordered the dissolution of the largest of the club's official clans of supporters, Les Boulogne Boys.

Last Sunday, PSG, leading with seven minutes to go, managed to lose 3-2 at home to Nice and fall into the relegation zone of Ligue 1 with five games to play. In between they scrambled a 1-0 cup victory against Carquefou, an amateur team from the fifth level of French football.

PSG have a difficult away match against Caen this evening. If they lose, the richest club in French football, the team supported by the President of the Republic, the club with the longest continuous run in the top flight (34 years), could decorate Ligue 2 next season.

If that happens, most French football fans will cheer. PSG, oddly for a club with only moderate success, is the most hated team in football on this side of the Channel. The PSG entry in the French language version of Wikipedia has special defences against verbal amendments or additions because of "frequent acts of vandalism".

PSG have always been a strange club, one created from a shotgun wedding between two smaller clubs, to occupy the Parc des Princes when it was rebuilt in the early 1970s. The club have had some success, winning the French championship twice (but not since 1994), the French cup seven times and the old European Cup-Winners' Cup (in 1996).

Some fine players have worn the red and blue of PSG: Ronaldinho, David Ginola, Gabriel Heinze. They have a large and passionate base of well-heeled, middle-class fans but also some of the most racist followers in European football.

The Boulogne Boys distinguished themselves, not for the first time, by displaying a 30-metre banner at the League Cup final at the Stade de France last month. Their opponents were Lens, from the industrial north whose oft-mocked local language and culture – Ch'ti – stars in a film which has been a runaway success in the French cinema this spring: Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis.

The Boulogne Boys' enormous banner read: "Paedophiles, unemployed and inbred: Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis". President Nicolas Sarkozy threatened to leave the stadium. Six fans have since been arrested. The "Boys" – who have official status, and their own club room at the Parc des Princes – are to be dissolved under a clause in a two-year-old anti-hooliganism law which has never been used before.

Good riddance. Except that nothing will stop the individual Boulogne Boys occupying the Boulogne-Billancourt end of the Parc and causing even more trouble than before.

The racist reputation of a large fringe of PSG fans cuts off the club from a huge reservoir of football-mad talent in the multiracial suburbs around Paris. The club tends to be supported by the Parisian middle class and the white working classes of the banlieues. When I collect my 14-year-old daughter each Friday from her athletics club at a small stadium in the inner Paris suburbs, teenage boys of several races are gathering for their football training. They wear replica shirts from all over Europe: Arsenal, Barcelona, Real Madrid, Manchester United, Milan, Marseilles but never, never PSG.

Paris has arguably the most productive urban soil for football talent outside the slums of Brazil. Thierry Henry, Didier Drogba, Lilian Thuram, Louis Saha, Hatem Ben Arfa were all brought up in greater Paris without playing for PSG. Young players who sign for PSG – Patrice Evra, Nicolas Anelka – rarely succeed there.

That alone does not explain the club's lack of success. The PSG ownership and management structure have always been bizarre. The big French cable TV company, Canal Plus, sold out two years ago and the club are now owned by an American holding company, Colony Capital, a French holding company, Butler Capital Partners and an American bank, Morgan Stanley.

Good players, and good coaches, come to PSG and leave PSG, but rarely succeed there. The present coach, Paul Le Guen, was successful at Lyons, and less successful in a brief stint at Rangers. The present team has players like the Portugal striker, Pauleta, and the France and ex-Monaco winger, Jérôme Rothen. They sometimes play with spirit and skill but rarely for a whole game and never for a whole season.

There always seems to be a moral vacuum at PSG: as if this synthetic club, created to fill a stadium and repair the absence of a top club in the capital, has never truly found an identity or soul. Great clubs need roots but they also need committed hearts and brains. Just ask the disoriented fans of Liverpool.

PSG can offer to transform local, national and sporting culture - i.e., daily practice/ways of life/ideologies - or be transformed BY such social currents. In its ineptitude, across all its efforts and operations, the club appears to be choosing the latter.

Let's hope it makes it back from L2 at all; let's hope that it becomes the best of Paris, rather than that of the city that oscillates betwixt ignorance and irrelevance.

[mpeabody]

In all honestly, perhaps a trip to L2 is exactly what the club needs to start over. Getting rid of the racism and changing the internal culture of the club stem from the top down and if we can get an owner who actually cares then there will be hope.

[NicolasN.]

This article is full of mistakes. They don't know PSG at all.

[Mel Brennan]

This article is full of mistakes. They don't know PSG at all.

Interesting. Where are they abjectly incorrect?

[Mel Brennan]

What about this article?

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,548033,00.html

[SportBoy333]

Interesting. Where are they abjectly incorrect?

They said PSG is the richest club in French football. Thats wrong. OL blew right past them and OM are richer.
They said most French fans will cheer if they are relegated. I dont believe thats true. OM fans will cheer but neutrals are smart enough to know that no PSG or Paris team in Ligue 1 is terrible for soccer in the country.
They said PSG has never truly found an identity or soul. I thought they established their identity in the mid 90's when they had Bernard Lama, Alain Roche, Ricardo Gomes, Valdo, David Ginola, George Weah, Raí and Youri Djorkaeff

[SportBoy333]

What about this article?

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,548033,00.html

They said the PdP has 30,000 seats. They focused way too much on the racial stuff. Thats not why the team is in the relegation zone but its a convenient scapegoat because things are bad.

[mpeabody]

They said PSG is the richest club in French football. Thats wrong. OL blew right past them and OM are richer.
They said most French fans will cheer if they are relegated. I dont believe thats true. OM fans will cheer but neutrals are smart enough to know that no PSG or Paris team in Ligue 1 is terrible for soccer in the country.
They said PSG has never truly found an identity or soul. I thought they established their identity in the mid 90's when they had Bernard Lama, Alain Roche, Ricardo Gomes, Valdo, David Ginola, George Weah, Raí and Youri Djorkaeff
Your first point you can show with plain euros. The second and third are matters of opinion and subject to speculation.

I dislike being referred to as a souless synthetic club as much as anyone, but he definitely has a point that we need committed hearts and brains.

[SportBoy333]

Well if you are cheering for them to get relegated just because they have a few racist fans well then thats just stupid. I refuse to believe most will cheer if they get relegated. It will be more sad than happy.

[mpeabody]

Well if you are cheering for them to get relegated just because they have a few racist fans well then thats just stupid. I refuse to believe most will cheer if they get relegated. It will be more sad than happy.

Agreed. My friends in Paris are not originally from the city, but they still cheer for PSG.

[NicolasN.]

I'd add that the problem at PSG is not at all the fans. If you want to find the problems you better look at CC, Butler, Cayzac, Roche, Pécout. It's not the fans who forced (tried for some of them) high salaries to leave PSG. It's not them who signed Everton, Souza, Ceara, Bourillon, Luyindula...

To me, the fans are the last good thing remaining at PSG. We have a bad roster (except 2 of them), a cheap firm owning the club, and a lot of incompetence leads us to L2. PSG fans were patients, they weren't asking for a new coach and they haven't really make troubles to the players. Now, it's different but they are only getting what they deserve.

We've heard so many times that PSG don't perform well because we need stability that they were quiet. Which resulted with 2 years fighting to survive.

I don't see why pointing out racism because of this banner which is not racist and we often see this kind of banner against PSG. As I already said they just used what French people usually think about north of France. It was supposed to be humor. Not the best sense of humor but it's kinda common. I don't think writting PSG fans are animals or "bienvenue, chez les cons" in some newspaper is any better.

BTW, I have some problems with being lectured by those Lensois who chanted during the whole games Paris on t'encule. When you give lessons to others, just try to be watch yourself in a mirror.

Lorient made the same kind of banner why haven't we heard about it? Why haven't we heard about those 145 injured by the police during the league cup ? Womans, childs and even police cops who came to watch the game were injured.

Anyway, pointing out racism to explain why PSG missed a lot of players is unrealistic. Look at our youngsters, they are all black. There are several reasons to explain this. First a problem with our scouts, which was blamed by Luis when he was coaching PSG. During several years it wasn't really the priority as well.

Then, if I were a young player I'd rather sign at Rennes or Auxerre than at PSG because it's easier to have playing time there. Plus, the pressure is not as high as at PSG therefore they can raise into good players peacefully.

[Padi]

Isnt there an irony also that in many reports we are referred to as a club with racist supporters. Not a club with a small minority of racist fans. What is the difference between this kind of sweeping generalisation by the media and the labelling of ch'tis as inbreds or as all unemployed! It really annoys me living in England, that that seems to be what we are known for best!

[Gnafron]

I certainly won't share a tear if Paris goes down…

Being from Lyon we all remember here the famous statement: "Lyon n'est plus…" when we were sent the whole army artillery to destroy our city during the Revolution…

Most Paris fans singing out loud "Paysans" (Peasants) to us, poor retarded citizens of the "province" (as we are referred to in the media), literally : the territories of the vanquished… The kind of behaviour really inspiring compassion…


;)

[midknight]

The article obviously made a number of generalisations about PSG which would be quickly put down by a nuanced view from the inside. However, it is a sweeping indictment of a relatively little known club seen from the outside. Chances are in the last 10 to 15 years, the average non French, casual football fan, would only have heard about PSG because of the unsavoury incidents, and nothing else.

The only thing I really know offhand about Feyernood other than that they're a regular uefa cup team is that they had that incident where their fans decided to riot at NAncy. Do a bit of research and the first thing I notice is that they have a history of unsavoury behaviour. Considering their status, second rate club in a second rate league, I'm not much tempted to look any further.

Nicholas, as far as the Chti banner goes, once again, racist might not be the word, but only because "les Chti" are not a race in the traditional sense of the word. However it reeks of in tolerance towards a certain ethnic group.
Unless you consider Parisians to be the same, I'm not sure how you can consider anything comparable. Paris (Saint Germain), on t'encule...might be an insult to PSG supporters that I don't condone, but i don't see why the average parisian would feel offended about it.
The "Chti" however aren't football supporters. There might be a few of them among the lens supporters, but the Lens supporters are not exclusively Chti, nor are the Chti exclusively Lens supporters. Furthermore, to use mass media coverage (cup final) to broadcast des "idées recues perjoratives" about them, whether "most of France" believes it or not (which is a sad indictment of "most of France" as far as i'm concerned) is uncondoneable, no matter who does it, and even if it is under the guise of humour.

If you were playing Bastia in that cup final, would you for instance condone PSG supporters with a banner saying "Bienvenue aux Terroristes" There's a huge difference between saying "I don't like you" and saying "You are the scum of the earth".

As you may have guessed, I'm not a PSG fan. However I'm lucid enough to know that PSG going down is not good for French football, nor is human stupidity limited to the capital. After this weekend i don't see how you can stay up, but its still possible. Good luck.

[SuperSebGrimaldi]

Anyway, pointing out racism to explain why PSG missed a lot of players is unrealistic. Look at our youngsters, they are all black.

Chantôme? Partouche? Though I do agree with the point that you're trying to make.

[NicolasN.]

Chantôme? Partouche? Though I do agree with the point that you're trying to make.

:p It was just a generalization since almost all of them are blacks. I know you understood me :D.

[kommienzuspadt]

i still cant believe they thought firing all the well paid players was a good idea especially given how unencouraging their performance was in 06-07...

[Mel Brennan]

They said PSG is the richest club in French football. Thats wrong. OL blew right past them and OM are richer.

D&T's "Football Money League" submits that OL and OM generate greater revenues right now (and for the last three seasons), but i'm not sure that income equals wealth, or even profit; that is, I'm not sure that PSG aren't the club with more assets/brand equity than any other in Ligue 1. You're right in that the article fails to explore that / fails to quantify what it means when it refers to "wealth."

Indeed, D&T submits:

...In this publication we compare clubs using revenue from day to day football business operations. We believe that our methodology - outlined in more detail in 'How we did it' - represents the best publicly available financial comparison. We are aware that in some cases clubs have other financial performance measures that they may consider to be a better basis for comparison. Some would prefer a profit measure, rather than a comparison of revenues...Some analysts would shy away from financial measures altogether and use alternative methods to determine relative size of football clubs - including measures of fanbase, attendances, TV audiences, or on-pitch success. We welcome, and in this edition provide some input to, this debate...

a submission that acknowledges directly that revenue cals are different club to club, and may not even equate to profits, and, thus, certainly not to wealth/assets/equity.

They said most French fans will cheer if they are relegated. I dont believe thats true. OM fans will cheer but neutrals are smart enough to know that no PSG or Paris team in Ligue 1 is terrible for soccer in the country.

No, no...having just been in the south a week ago, they'll cheer - hard - first, then, next year, think about the ramifications to French football...but first they'll cheer their asses off.

They said PSG has never truly found an identity or soul. I thought they established their identity in the mid 90's when they had Bernard Lama, Alain Roche, Ricardo Gomes, Valdo, David Ginola, George Weah, Raí and Youri Djorkaeff

"Establish" means, to me, that we'd have a sniff of that type of play today, and not just then, during that era. The fact that we look the diametric opposite of the play and effort and skill of the 90s means, definitively, that nothing from that period was established, only experienced THEN and utterly absent NOW.

Great win against Auxerre...will it be enough? Don't know...will this organization learn from its repeated mistakes to NOT be in this situation next year should it be lucky enough TO stay up and avoid the drop?

That's less likely than actually staying up, in my view.

[robledo]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/europe/7388386.stm

Paris St Germain's second string offered some respite from a season of torment, by securing a place in the French Cup final with a 1-0 victory over second division Amiens on Tuesday.

PSG have already qualified for next season's Uefa Cup after winning the League Cup. Yet, despite the cup success, the club is on the brink of disaster, locked in a battle to stay in Ligue 1.

Relegation would leave Paris as the only major European capital with no football club in the top flight of its national league.

The problems besetting PSG have become the ongoing saga of the domestic game in France.

Once a big European club, in recent years it has lurched from one crisis to another, and its problems on the field have been compounded by the violence and racism of some of its followers.

Once again they made a dubious name for themselves at Amiens as the game was held up for 10 minutes after tear gas drifted into the ground; police had used it outside the stadium to disperse ticket-less PSG supporters who tried to force their way in.


On the pitch the hero was 20-year-old Yannick Boli, nephew of the former Marseille and Rangers French international defender Basile Boli.

His individual goal prevented further embarrassment for PSG - and for the club's other Glasgow connection, the beleaguered coach Paul Le Guen.
Boli's goal sent PSG into the final


The former Rangers boss got it right this time. His decision to field a young side and to bring Boli off the bench paid off.

But in the league he has failed to get the best out of his more experienced players: club captain and Portuguese international Pauleta apart, they have regularly underperformed.

The team failed to win any of their first 10 home games, succumbing to repeated and sometimes comic defensive howlers, notably from goalkeeper Mickael Landreau. With just two matches remaining, PSG lie third from bottom and could go down for the first time in their history.

If, as expected, Paul Le Guen leaves at the end of the season he will not be the first coach with a previously good reputation to have failed at PSG.

His problems in Paris - and those during his eight-month spell at Rangers - contrast with the success at Lyon where, under his guidance, the club won three successive league titles and twice reached the Champions League quarter-finals.

Before a recent home game, some PSG fans said they thought Le Guen's style was more suited to Lyon's stable and serene atmosphere than it was to the Paris pressure cooker, where he did "more harm than good".

Others blame the club for lacking a long-term strategy and for a poor recruitment policy, arguing Le Guen's purchases last summer are simply not up to the job.

"They had a link with Claude Makelele from Chelsea, but Le Guen didn't want him", says Jerome Touboul from the sports newspaper L'Equipe. "He preferred to buy players from clubs like Rennes in France; they are not good enough mentally to support the pressure in Paris this season."

But PSG's problems pre-date the arrival of the current coach, the sixth to take the reins this decade.

It's not like in London, where you have seven or eight good clubs, in Paris you have only one

L'Equipe's Jerome Touboul

Since 1998 the club has also been through as many chairmen, following the recent departure of Alain Cayzac.

Star players such as Ronaldinho failed to make an impact and the millions invested by Canal Plus, before the TV company pulled out two years ago, did not halt the decline.

Meanwhile, unwelcome elements among PSG's support have been doing their best to stamp their own identity on the club. In recent years, some among the traditional white following have battled for supremacy - sometimes physically - with increasing numbers of new supporters from Paris' racially diverse suburbs.

During this year's League Cup Final at the Stade de France, PSG followers unveiled a large banner insulting people from the north of France - home to the team's opponents Lens - as "paedophiles" and "inbreeders".

Afterwards the supporters group the Boulogne Boys was outlawed and the club banned from next year's tournament.

A police investigation found at least part of the banner had been put together inside the Parc des Princes. The authorities stand accused of having been too tolerant for too long towards PSG's hooligans, even though they number only a few hundred.

"Football is not considered important enough to mobilise the police, French justice, Paris St Germain, the Football League, the Ministry of Sport," says sports psychologist Patrick Mignon, who in the past has mediated between PSG and its fans.

The decision not to dock league points for the banner episode has angered other clubs and supporters across France. Some have even suggested there is a conspiracy to keep PSG in the top flight.

Relegation would certainly be an embarrassment for the French capital, and for Paris city council, which subsidises the club to the tune of £1.8m a year.

"It's not like in London, where you have seven or eight good clubs, in Paris you have only one," added Touboul. "For the French league it wouldn't be a good thing; the Parc des Princes is considered to be the most beautiful stadium in France, so the symbol of PSG in Ligue 2 would be very strong."

PSG itself is now in a desperate fight to avoid becoming consigned to French football history.

[SportBoy333]

"They had a link with Claude Makelele from Chelsea, but Le Guen didn't want him", says Jerome Touboul from the sports newspaper L'Equipe. "He preferred to buy players from clubs like Rennes in France; they are not good enough mentally to support the pressure in Paris this season."

I don't believe this. I believe they didnt sign him because they can't afford the wages of a Chelsea player. If what is written above is indeed true though then Le Guen is an idiot.