By Le Figaro with AFP
Published 1 hour ago, Updated now
Marseille supporters will be traveling to Benfica. Stephane Mahe / REUTERS
Marseille supporters will be present this Thursday evening at Benfica to see their team compete in the C3 quarter-final first leg.
At the end of a day of negotiations between the French and Portuguese authorities, several thousand supporters of Olympique de Marseille will finally be able to access the Benfica stadium on Thursday evening to watch the quarter-final first leg of the Europa League. “Benfica has reversed its decision to prohibit access to French supporters. They will be able to enter the stadium.indicated Thursday afternoon the spokesperson for the Portuguese police, deputy intendant Sérgio Soares.
A few minutes earlier, French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin announced that Benfica supporters would ultimately not be banned from traveling to Marseille for the return match on April 18. An announcement which helped to resolve the situation and give Marseillais access to the Stade de la Luz.
“In view of the authorization of the presence of Benfica supporters in Marseille, Marseille supporters will also be authorized to be present for the first leg of the Europa League quarter-final, the tickets they have acquired becoming valid”communicated Benfica. “Benfica welcomes the decision of the French authorities to reverse their previous measure and authorize Benfica supporters to go to the second leg of the Europa League quarter-finals”underlined the Lisbon club, praising the effective collaboration between “Benfica, Marseille and UEFA from the first hour, in order to find the outcome that would best defend football.”
OM, for its part, “welcomes that all the efforts made in recent days have resulted in a favorable outcome in which Pablo Longoria has always believed and thanks all the stakeholders who worked in this direction”explained the French club in a press release, calling “all OM supporters to go to the stadium calmly”.
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“Back to reality”
“I am happy that we have returned to reality and that the supporters can support their team as we have always claimed”, reacted immediately to several media including AFP Rachid Zeroual, the leader of the South Winners, the main group of Marseille supporters, present in Lisbon. According to him, “the minister didn’t have much choice. What you call common sense is reality. We are here in Lisbon, between 2,000 and 3,000”he insisted.
In the middle of the afternoon, several hundred Marseillais gathered in a relaxed atmosphere on the terraces of Commerce Square in Lisbon, on the banks of the Tagus, noted an AFP journalist. “We would have gone anyway because you cannot prohibit people from entering the stadium even though they have paid for the tickets”, added another member of the South Winners, who wished to remain anonymous. On Tuesday, their tickets for the match against Benfica in the Europa League quarter-final first leg were deactivated by the Portuguese club, in response to a possible travel ban for their own fans during the return match in a week in Marseille.
Finally, Portuguese fans will be allowed to travel to Bouches-du-Rhône on April 18. At that time, the Portuguese authorities took this decision because they considered that the possible travel ban on Portuguese supporters in France could give rise to excesses in Lisbon during the first leg, according to a source close to the matter.
In a context of very high terrorist threat in France, the police feared the presence of unsupervised supporters or hooligans looking for confrontation. In direct contact with Rui Costa, the former great Portuguese N.10 now president of Benfica, OM president Pablo Longoria has been pushing for several days for a solution to be found. On Wednesday, he assured that he would not attend the match if OM supporters were banned from entering the stadium.
In the meantime, the Portuguese police have announced that a device “reinforced” would be set up to support OM fans in the city center, but also around the stadium and on the public transport network.
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