‘Collective negligence’: PSG fined $114K for racially profiling youth players

Football giants Paris Saint-Germain have been fined €100,000 ($114,000) by the French league for “collective negligence” after an investigation into the racial profiling of potential youth team signings.

The Parisians were slapped with the fine after a probe into reports that youth academy scouts had been asked to indicate whether promising young stars were of French, North African, black African or West Indian ethnicity, which runs counter to French law. 

In issuing the €100,000 fine on Tuesday, the Ligue de Football Professionnel (LFP) said that “there is no case of discrimination that can be proved,” but that “it is more a case of individual clumsiness and collective negligence.”  

After the reports emerged from French outlet Mediapart in November, PSG admitted the existence of the forms but denied that the club’s management had known about them.

The club’s own investigation said in November it had found “no proven case of discrimination.”

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LFP disciplinary commissioner Sebastien Deneux said on Tuesday that "from what we can see, PSG did not use the information on ethnicity for discriminatory ends."

Several individuals implicated in the claims were handed sanctions, including a suspended €10,000 fine for Bertrand Reuzeau, the director of PSG's training center between 2013 and 2015.

Recruitment agents Marc Westerloppe and Pierre Reynaud were handed suspended fines of €5,000 each. 

The club, which boasts stars such as Kylian Mbappe and Neymar in their ranks, currently remain undefeated at the top of the Ligue 1 table after 19 games of the season, 13 points clear of second-placed Lille with two games in hand. They are aiming to win their sixth title in seven years.