Paris St-Germain: French champions fined 100,000 euros for racial profiling

Paris St-Germain have been fined 100,000 euros (£87,691) for racially profiling youth players.

French website Mediapart published documents showing signings being identified by their ethnicity.

It is against French law to collect personal data revealing an individual’s racial or ethnic origins.

The French league (LFP) disciplinary commission, which issued the fine, said PSG did not use the data for discriminatory purposes.

A decision was reached by the LFP after hearing from former officials involved in PSG’s recruitment between 2013 and 2018.

Scouts for the Ligue 1 champions were allegedly asked, for every player observed, to choose one of four options on an electronic drop-down menu: French, North African, black African or West Indian.

In November, the club acknowledged and condemned the existence of the files revealed by Mediapart.

“There is no case of discrimination that can be proved,” LFP disciplinary commissioner Sebastien Deneux said at a press conference.

“It is more a case of individual clumsiness and collective negligence.”

PSG previously said the club’s general management did not know there was an ethnic registration system in a recruitment department.

And the LFP said that PSG general manager Jean-Claude Blanc had not been sanctioned.

“From what we can see, PSG did not use the information on ethnicity for discriminatory ends,” Deneux said.

Source: BBC sports