Search: 'Olympique Marseille'

It's not just PSG's play that's foul, writes Dave Winter, it's their crowds as well

When the International Olympic Committee’s representatives visit Paris early this month to assess the city’s bid for the 2012 Games, you can be sure their hosts will keep them well away from a home match featuring the main Paris football team. It’s not just that PSG have been dire this season, finishing bottom of their Champions League group and struggling in the bottom half of Ligue 1. One whiff of the poisonous atmosphere at the Parc des Princes this season and the IOC would be straight on the blower to Seb Coe with some good news.

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The birthplace of Napoleon is enjoying a football revival. Dan Brierley reports on how Ajaccio and Bastia are getting on in the French first division

Football isn’t the first thing you associate with the island of Corsica, but this season, for the first time since 1972-73, SC Bastia were joined by AC Ajaccio in the French first division. Fifty-two thousand people took to the streets to celebrate.

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Dear WSC
You may not be aware that fans from Madrid and Leverkusen attending the Champions League final at Hampden Park were handed a Scottish goody bag by the Daily Record containing, among other things, a Tunnock’s caramel wafer and a can of Coke. Class.
Glenn McCall, Dundee

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No one else would do it, so Neil McCarthy felt compelled to hand out some awards to the French presidents who have so enriched the past season

Each season, the French Players’ Union stage Les Oscars du Foot, televised live and attended by the squads of all 38 professional clubs. This year, Bor­deaux’s striker Pauleta won player of the season and Djibril Cissé won best young player. For some reason, though, none of the 38 club presidents turned up for the Oscars and only two sent apologies. France Football magazine remarked on this and suggested that per­haps the organisers would have more success in at­tracting them if they awarded an Oscar for president of the season.

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Controversial chairman Bernard Tapie is back at Olympique de Marseille. Patrick Mignon looks at the impact the returning chairman will have and whether he can banish the negativity that surrounded his previous tenure

Bernard Tapie, the most controversial chairman in French football history, has returned to run Olympique de Marseille, eight years after he was driven out after being found guilty of match-fixing.

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