Fans of French Ligue2 clubs have been protesting the move to playing league matches on Friday nights to satisfy their broadcast partner. The fans welcome their teams on to the pitch noisily, but when the game kicks off go silent. Graham Harrison a Leeds United fan holidaying in Brittany, France, with a football supporting friend decided to watch a Ligue2 Friday night match last week.
It was a surreal experience and a protest against an issue similar to ones fans in England’s Championship are also having to contend with.
Following last week’s game Graham emailed the letter below to us.
An English fan abroad
I have just read your article online and interestingly I was at a game last night at FC Lorient. (Fans plan Ligue2 protests).
I live in England and I am on holiday with a friend, I support Leeds United and he supports Fulham and we thought it would be fun to take in a game while we were in Brittany.
Our first thought was that FC Lorient is a super little club, very much family oriented and a great mix of support. The cost of our seats was just €7 each. There is plenty of choice for food inside the stadium and fans are able to walk around all the concourses. There are lots of people wandering around the stadium with flags offering fans help and support should they need it. Others offer you a free football program.
On the surface it all looks great. Prior to the game there was entertainment and plenty of flag waving on the pitch and as the players came out there was plenty of cheering. The game started and immediately my friend and I were looking at each other wondering about the strange atmosphere. It was so quiet, I joked that it was like playing in a library.
There were several very large banners that were displayed around the stadium, one was protesting against one of the minority owners of the club who also has a major share in Bournemouth FC.
Other banners were clearly supporting the protest against beIN Sports and the fight to return to Saturday fixtures. Another banner was also on display but my French is very much limited to asking for food and drink, I’ll add a photo of it. There were a couple of dozen supporters who had travelled from Paris to support Red Star, but they too were on the whole silent except for some vociferous chanting which was immediately joined in by the home supporters so I guess it was protest chanting.
Sadly, the protest by the home supporters behind the goal went too far on a couple of occasions and objects were thrown on to the pitch twice and this led to the referee taking the teams off the pitch for about 20 minutes and the PA system asking for supporters to behave.
As well as the home supporters throwing objects on to the pitch, throughout the game they were shining laser pens towards one of the stands where I presume the TV cameras were broadcasting from because some of the stadium screens were flashing bright green lights. There was cheering when the goals were scored but the majority of the game was extremely quiet. All in all it was quite a surreal experience.
I can fully understand the frustration felt by the fans of French football, we are experiencing exactly the same in the EFL with the launch of Sky Sports +. So many of the games are rescheduled away from the traditional 1500 kick-off on Saturday afternoon. Last season Leeds United were were featured on Sky Sports 33 times and fixtures were constantly changed causing disruption to supporters travel plans.
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