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On Tuesday, November 26, Bayern Munich fans protested against Paris Saint-Germain President Nasser Al-Khelaifi during their team’s 1-0 win over them in the UEFA Champions League (UCL). At the Allianz Arena, the supporters of Bayern Munich held up several banners to criticise Nasser Al-Khelaifi, including one in which his face had a line over it, while the other one called him a “plutocratic” with an expletive written over it.
Some of the other banners against the PSG President read, “Minister, club owner, TV rights holder, UEFA ExCo member & ECA chairman all in one?” Notably, Nasser Al-Khelaifi is quite an unpopular personality in the footballing world, especially with the fans of Bayern Munich, due to his influence on the European football as the chairman of the European Club Association, apart from heading the Qatar Sports Investments, the owners of PSG, and the Qatari state-owned beIN media group.
Bayern Munich fans forced their club to not renew longstanding sponsorship deal with Qatar Airways last year
Nasser Al-Khelaifi also became the member of the UEFA’s Executive Committee, while playing a key role in putting together the new format and commercial strategy of the UCL during a time when beIN are one of the major broadcasting partners of the competition, which raised scrutiny for potential conflicts of interest. Moreover, it was in 2022 when UEFA didn’t punish Nasser Al-Khelaifi despite finding PSG guilty of misconduct with match officials during their confrontations in the UCL.
The Bayern Munich fans have protested for quite some time against their own club for a deal with the Qatar Airways, owned by the Qatari state, who have been accused of human rights abuses in the build-up to the FIFA World Cup 2022. It led to the deal being not renewed last year, but still, the supporters were quite vocal about their hatred for the PSG President during the UCL matchup which saw their team defeat them 1-0, thanks to a goal from Kim Min-jae’s in the first half.
