PARIS: French champions Paris Saint-Germain have been fined €100,000 because the club’s scouts had for years listed the ethnic origins of young recruits.
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The French League’s disciplinary commission made the ruling after hearing from former officials involved in the recruitment between 2013-18 and PSG general manager Jean-Claude Blanc, who was not penalised.
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Blanc has been at the club since 2011 but PSG have previously said the club’s general management did not know there was an ethnic registration system in a recruitment department.
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Last November, the investigative website Mediapart, which based its allegations on the so-called ‘Football Leaks’ documents, claimed PSG had until the spring of 2018 asked recruiters to record the origin of players in four categories: ‘Francais’ (French), ‘Maghrebin’ (North African), ‘Antillais’ (West Indian), and ‘Afrique noire’ (Black African).

It is against French law to collect personal data which reveals racial or ethnic origins of individuals.

In 2014, the director of the club’s recruitment unit across the country, excluding the Paris region, defended at a meeting the ethnic vision of the team, justifying a discriminatory recruitment policy, Mediapart said.

Last November Qatari-owned PSG acknowledged and condemned the existence of the ethnic identity files.

A statement said: “The general management of the club never knew of an ethnic registration system within a recruitment department or possessed any such forms.

PSG have since confirmed that forms with illegal contents were used between 2013 and 2018 by the recruitment cell of the training academy dedicated to regions outside the Paris area.

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