L’Association Nationale des Supporters (ANS) will attempt to appeal the widespread travel bans in French Football, which are set to impact Ligue 1 and Ligue 2 games this weekend, and beyond. According to RMC Sport, the ANS has confirmed that it will be taking legal action to contest the sanctions against supporters.
The French government has acted quickly after an FC Nantes fan was killed in an attack before the game against OGC Nice, with a travel ban imposed on games categorised as high-risk fixtures until the 18th of December. This has led to eight games this weekend seeing restrictions implemented on away supporters.
The ANS in a statement transcribed by RMC Sport expressed its aim to challenge some of those restricted fixtures, declaring that it will “refer the matter to the Council of State concerning the ministerial and prefectural decrees applicable to matches between FC Saint-Méziery and AJ Auxerre, between Montpellier and Lens, between Nice and Reims, and between Angoulême and Bordeaux.”
Bans on Ligue 1 and Ligue 2 fans deemed ‘very questionable’
The organisation hopes that the Council of State will suspend the bans on those four fixtures stating that the restrictions imposed on these games were “very grossly illegal and unjustifiable” continuing “they are likely, by their late implementation, to create more risks than they are supposed to prevent.”
However, the ANS also wanted to stress that this legal challenge was in no way “intended to minimise the seriousness of last Saturday’s tragedy. No one can doubt the immense sadness which strikes the French stadiums. No one can doubt our sense of responsibility either.”
For the other four fixtures, between Paris Saint-Germain-FC Nantes, AS Saint-Étienne-Nîmes Olympique, FC Lorient-Olympique de Marseille, and Olympique Lyonnais-Toulouse FC, the association conceded that “these orders are very questionable. But they will attract very large crowds. It is too late to shake up their organisation.”
