Can PSG-Basaksehir be an anti-racist turn in football?

PSG and Basaksehir players before the match -

• Several former players were marked by the decision of the players of PSG and Basaksehir to stop the meeting on Tuesday.

• If they see it as a sign of hope, they wonder what the rest of the anti-racist fight in football will be.

• Some players, like Louis Saha, are ready to join.

Back plateau.

It is a little after 9:25 pm in a frozen Parc des Princes when the commentators of RMC Sports, broadcaster of the match, return the antenna.

The match has been stopped for ten minutes and the two teams, who refuse to resume play with a referee they accuse of racism, have already returned to the locker room.

Calm and composed, the former player and consultant Louis Saha tries live to understand and measure what has just happened in front of his eyes.

“Looking back, I had the impression of living History,” he explains to us after a night's sleep.

I want to take my hat off to the players: in a situation like this, where we find ourselves making decisions on the spot, in an ocean of emotions, they were brilliant.

I was touched.

"

Interviewed by the team after the end of the match, the former player Olivier Dacourt, author of a documentary on racism in football, goes further.

“This match will be a milestone in football and even the world of sport.

From these scandalous remarks by the Romanian referee was born a strong act.

This stop will mark a turning point and perhaps history.

"

" Something new "

The image will remain, of course.

Its scope will only be analyzed in the long term.

Football - and sport in general - has struggled against its problems of racism for too long to imagine that we will no longer hear the slightest cry of a monkey from a stand or the slightest insult from a player who has not tasted the cleats of 'another.

But something happened on Tuesday night.

For the first time, two teams have collectively chosen to stop playing in the face of racism.

“We went from the player who protests all alone to the team, believes the former legendary Cameroonian goalkeeper Joseph-Antoine Bell.

And there, we even went from a team to two teams, it's absolutely magnificent.

I remember that when I come back to Marseille and that I am insulted at the Vélodrome because I am black, at the OM there are Angloma, Boli and Abedi and they, limit they do not feel concerned, they are almost amused.

That those of Basaksehir and those of PSG feel concerned is already a great step.

"

Or, as Olivier Dacourt would say, “an extremely strong symbol […] of fraternity and solidarity”.

"It is a historical fact, it is the first time that we have seen a consensus of the two teams who decide to stop, it is very strong, underlines the sport historian Claude Boli, brother of the former players Basile and Roger Boli.

We are witnessing something new, very unique.

"

Who can set a precedent.

Now, football players know that if those of PSG and Basaksehir have decided not to play, they can do so.

Where the game had always until then always run its course, as when Mario Balotelli had threatened in vain to leave the field after racist insults in Brescia.

"This marks a turning point, because from now on the players know that they can stop a match," explains

1998 world champion Lilian Thuram

for

.

Very often, the players who were victims were asked what to do, but the game continued anyway.

Next time we will expect players to have that attitude, and if they don't, we will ask them why they didn't.

It is an act that incites responsibility.

To no longer be in neutrality.

And who says: from now on, you have the obligation to get up.

And that's why it's powerful.

"

What about UEFA?

Claude Boli nuance: “We can insist on the consensual nature of the reaction to the phenomenon of racism.

From there to saying that it will set a precedent, I am less optimistic.

We have to wait for UEFA to react, we have to see how the players will react.

"

The players put one knee on the ground before the kick-off of this PSG-Basaksehir act II.

- FRANCK FIFE / AFP

Tuesday evening, Kylian Mbappé or Neymar were on the front line to ask the referee for explanations and make the decision to refuse to play.

On a line, relatively recent, where the stars of football are taking more and more part in societal debates, as can those of American sport, in the tradition of the Black Lives Matter movement.

"It has always been super-complicated to express yourself for a footballer, raises Louis Saha.

The change is palpable through the effects of society: it took thousands of people in the streets to change the perception of sponsors, decision-makers, and the general public.

"

“The next step is to raise awareness among the players,” sums up Joseph-Antoine Bell.

They have to react spontaneously, not like movie actors.

We want them to feel concerned, not to play a role.

Let them say: I am confronted with racism, we cannot let racism express itself like that in society.

"

A collective to "move the institution"?

So much for the players.

There remains the question of instances.

Fifa obviously, but also UEFA, whose crisis advisor was to have asked an RTT Tuesday evening.

“They took more than an hour and a half to react, that saddens me, Saha breathes.

In terms of example, it's not showing any empathy, it's not understanding the impact of such a gesture, it's aberrant.

"

“We will see what measures UEFA will take or not, continues Ricard Faty.

It's all well and good to put “no to racism” on the sleeves if behind you don't assume.

Otherwise it's hypocrisy.

The sanction will be there for the referee, but after?

".

Saha admits to having the same doubts against an institution which "does not listen, does not approach subjects in the right way.

"

Saha, who exchanges regularly with Demba Ba, Lilian Thuram or Samuel Eto'o, ensures that he feels ready to be part of a collective capable of bringing these subjects to the table, around athletes and influencers, to "do move the institution ”.

He concludes: “Tuesday evening, there was somewhere an awareness that there are opportunities to change things with support, solidarity, commitment.

But for that, we needed unity.

This is what the players of PSG and Basaksehir offered.

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