The fight of the collective of victims resulted in October 2021 to an index matters on May 5 in French competitions. This year, a meeting at European level will oppose OM Thursday evening to the Feyenoord Rotterdam at the Stade-Vélodrome, but the players will observe a minute of silence.
Le Monde with AFP
May 5, 1992 saw “the worst catastrophe of French sport”, when a tribune of the Stade de Furiani, in Corsica collapsed, causing the death of 19 people and injuring more than 2,300 others. Thirty years later, day to the day, a minute of silence will be observed on Thursday May 5 at the Stade-Vélodrome, in Marseille, before the Marseille Olympic match (OM) -Feyenoord Rotterdam in the semi-finals return from the Europa League Conference.
For the entry into force, in 2022, of the law which prohibited matches on May 5 in French competitions, we can see a paradox, since a meeting will however be organized on this date. But it will be within the framework of a European test, in the semi-finals return from the Europa League Conference, and the collective of victims considers having reached its “main objective” by sanctuarizing this day in the future.
“This year, these are quite symbolic and particular commemorations”, according to Josepha GUIDICELLI, the president of the collective of victims. That day, she lost her father, Jean-Pierre Guidicelli, journalist. “Symbolic”, because “these are the thirty years of the tragedy” and “particular (…) because, the October 20, 2021, there was this law which came to freeze the matches when it falls on May 5 “.
This request that no first, second division, French Cup and the Champions Trophy was played on May 5, definitively adopted by the French Parliament, “was very important for us”, recalls that who was 4 years old on drama. “This fight which took ten years to reach” was the main demand for the collective. Tirelessly, the victims hitherto stood the reluctance of the Professional Football League and the French Football Federation (FFF), embarrassed in the organization of their competitions. Consequently, these will be “much more peaceful, much more serene commemorations”, insisted M me Guidicelli.
“The players will wear a black armband”
“As soon as the date of May 5 has been known and we qualified, it was obvious to us to request UEFA to mark this match of a commemoration imprint,” said Jacques Cardoze, OM communication director, during a press conference organized Tuesday by the club and the collective of victims. “UEFA has accepted the principle of a minute of silence. The players will wear a black armband, a text will be read by the speaker and messages will be broadcast on giant screens,” added Mr. Cardoze.
“Here, the sun declines and the atmosphere rises …” After these few words spoken on May 5, 1992 by Michel Vivarelli, journalist at Radio France Corse, a great crash and a deafening silence had occupied the antenna for several minutes. The northern rostrum of the Armand-Cesari stadium of Furiani had just collapsed.
It was “a national tragedy, one of the darkest pages in [French] sports history”, said the Minister of Sports, Roxana Maracineanu, in February 2021, during the adoption, by the Assembly national, text carried by a Corsican deputy.
So there will be this Marseille-Feyenoord on Thursday. A meeting that Renaud Muselier, president of the Provence-Alpes-Côte-d’Azur region, or Jean-Charles Orsucci, mayor of Bonifacio, in the south of Corsica, had called to move on another date, “out of respect for the memory of the victims “. Without success. “It’s a shame for the symbolism, insists M Me