A French LGBT rights organization announced on Wednesday that it had filed a lawsuit against Amazon Prime for providing a streaming replay of a Paris Saint-Germain vs. Marseille football game during which it was apparent that homophobic chants were made. Scroll down to read the Lawsuit Filed Against Amazon Over homophobic slogan.
Lawsuit Filed Against Amazon Over Homophobic Slogan
Numerous homophobic chants were directed towards their opponents by thousands of PSG supporters during the match on September 24 between the fierce Ligue 1 rivals. According to an AFP reporter covering the match, there was chanting in PSG’s Parc des Princes stadium for almost ten minutes.
Four PSG players—Ousmane Dembele and Randal Kolo Muani among them—were given suspended one-match suspensions for their part in the taunting of the Marseille players during their team’s 4-0 thumping of them.
While broadcasters are not liable for objectionable information that may occur during a live event, they are liable for anything supplied on replay, according to a lawyer for the LGBT Families group, which has filed a criminal complaint against Amazon Prime for providing the game on replay.
As per the complaint, throughout the replay, “you can hear several chants from fans coming from the stands, some of which are distinctly homophobic in nature.”
Mousse and Stop Homophobie, two more LGBT rights organizations, have declared they will accompany Amazon in the lawsuit alleging public insults and the instigation of violence or hatred toward individuals based on their sexual orientation.
When the complaint was made public, Amazon stated that the game was no longer accessible on Prime Video and that, in its capacity as a broadcaster, it did not support the remarks or actions of specific fans.
An Amazon representative told AFP that “homophobia has no place in sport or society and we condemn it, like all forms of discrimination, in the strongest possible terms.”
“Lead by example”
Kolo Muani, Dembele, Achraf Hakimi, and Layvin Kurzawa, the four PSG players suspended last month for the chanting, issued an apology for their actions, claiming their team’s victory over Marseille had “carried them away.” They also pledged to “respect our duty to set an example” going forward.
PSG was given the order to close the Parc des Princes’ Auteuil stand for one game.
In what it referred to as the “fight against the trivialization of homophobia in football,” the Straight Red Card organization Rouge Direct supported the complaint against Amazon Prime.
It said that Amazon Prime had broken a pledge it made earlier this year to stop airing homophobic shouts during replays and charged the streaming behemoth with breaking that guarantee.
According to a September poll by the Federation Sportive LGBT+ Association, homophobia in French sports is still pervasive; 46% of respondents indicated they have personally witnessed homophobic or transphobic behavior in sports.
A number of Ligue 1 players declined to wear rainbow-colored emblems on their jerseys during the previous season as a protest against homophobia. The majority of players, however, backed the movement.
