Vancouver Sun Thursday, April 13, 2006

Beer-fuelled racism common at Paris soccer stadium

By Jerome Pugmire

Paris -- Warming up on the sideline, a black player jogs toward fans at the
Parc des Princes soccer stadium. As he gets closer, a barrage of monkey
chants explodes -- "OOOH! OOOH! OOOH!"-- and racist insults fill the air.

Such scenes are increasingly common at the home stadium of Paris
Saint-Germain, or PSG, one of France's top soccer teams. And they stain
elite soccer leagues elsewhere in Europe, raising fears a global sport that
calls itself "the beautiful game" is getting uglier.

Many of the fans yelling insults are members of white hooligan gangs that
prowl the stadium grounds on game day, looking for a rumble with black and
Arab members of a multiethnic rival gang.

Interviews with gang members and repeated visits to PSG games found that
racist hooligans operate openly and with almost total impunity at the
43,000-seat stadium on the western outskirts of Paris.

Soccer, with its many black stars, should be a showcase of multiracial
harmony -- especially in France, which draws heavily on talent from its
former African colonies.

Instead, brawling soccer fans have emerged as the extreme fringe of a deeply
troubled France -- one whose problems include grappling with stiffening
resistance to immigration. After the riots that engulfed immigrant-dominated
French suburbs last year, beer-fueled racism in soccer has taken on an even
more menacing tinge.

Unlike soccer hooliganism elsewhere, in which the antagonists are fans of
rival teams, the clashes outside Parc des Princes are largely between fans
rooting for the same team -- PSG.

PSG supporters in the bleachers divide along racial lines in two opposing
sections of stands -- the Kop of Boulogne behind one goal, and the Tribune
d'Auteuil behind the other.

Boulogne is nearly entirely Caucasian; Auteuil is multiracial, including
whites.

Two all-white groups -- the Independents and the Casual Firm -- have fought
with increasing ferocity in recent months with multiracial Tigris Mystic.
(The English-language names of the white groups reflect the influence
English soccer hooliganism has had in Europe.)

The race issue comes out clearly in interviews with gang members on both
sides, none of whom agreed to be identified by name because they have police
records and fear more trouble with the authorities.

One leading member of the Independents, dressed in a designer overcoat and
proudly showing off a finger that got bent out of shape in a fan skirmish,
said his gang is out to rid the suburbs of blacks and Arabs.

A high-ranking Tigris Mystic man said his group is fighting back against
such "fascist" views.

"We've had enough of being knocked around," said the 23-year-old man of
North African descent.

Tigris Mystic is based in the Paris suburb of Seine-Saint-Denis, one of the
centres of last year's riots. Casual Firm hooligans wielding iron bars
vandalized its headquarters in October, just days before the violence broke
out.

On Feb. 25, Tigris Mystic members, some allegedly armed with machetes and
nail-studded planks of wood, ambushed 20 Independents at a highway gas
station on their way back from a match. Five people were injured.

PSG, where George Weah of Liberia and Ronaldinho of Brazil once displayed
their magic, is not alone in facing racist outrages. In Spain, Barcelona
striker Samuel Eto'o of Cameroon threatened to walk off the field after
Zaragoza fans subjected him to monkey chants in February. In Italy,
right-wing fans have displayed Nazi and fascist symbols and anti-Semitic
banners at Rome's Stadio Olimpico.

But some black players say the atmosphere at Parc des Princes has become
intolerable.

"I'd have to think twice before setting foot there again," Senegal-born
Patrick Vieira, a midfielder for the French national team, told The
Associated Press.