INTERVIEW
Almost four months after stopping sport due to the coronavirus pandemic, football is resuming in France. PSG moves to Le Havre, a Ligue 2 club, for a friendly match which will take place from 7 p.m. The meeting will be played in front of 5,000 people and will be broadcast live on BeIn Sports. Between journalists, staffs, referees and officials, 600 people have been accredited and 4,000 seats have been put on sale. "They were all sold in eight minutes," said Pierre Wantiez, general manager of the Le Havre club on Sunday morning at the microphone of Europe 1.
Wearing a mandatory mask to circulate
"We have the feeling of helping to revive the machine of a normal life. We have the responsibility of ensuring that it goes very well," explained Pierre Wantiez. Special sanitary measures have been put in place: wearing a strictly compulsory mask to enter the stadium, hydroalcoholic gel at the entrance and traffic flow. Once installed in the stadium, spectators must leave an empty seat between each of them, unless they come in a group already formed. "It is desirable to keep your mask when you are sitting in its place, but it is not compulsory," said Pierre Wantiez, before adding: "We ask all the people who have just been responsible."
LIVE - Coronavirus: follow the situation on Sunday, July 12
Edouard Philippe and Roxana Maracineanu present at the stadium
"The whole sports group must keep a mask. The substitutes will have to keep it, even if I know that it is very unpleasant for them," he continued. The players but also all those who will access the playground or the locker room area were tested on Thursday. No Covid-19 positive cases have been identified. Pierre Wantiez also confided that Edouard Philippe, returning to the town hall of Le Havre after leaving Matignon, would be present at the Océane stadium, as well as the minister delegate for Sports, Roxana Maracineanu.
>> READ ALSO - Champions League: discover the posters of the quarter-finals
Ligue 1 and Ligue 2 have been stopped due to the coronavirus pandemic, while all the other major European championships (Germany, England, Spain, Italy) have resumed in recent weeks. PSG and Le Havre players will therefore return to the field on Sunday evening. Parisians should not waste time in their preparation, since they will face Atalanta Bergamo in the quarter-final of the Champions League, in the Final 8 of the competition, organized in Lisbon on August 12.