France-Israel high risk with only 25,000 tickets sold

Most of the stands for next Thursday's France-Israel Nations League match will be empty as only just over 25,000 tickets have been sold.

The French government considers the game ‘high risk’, following anti-Semitic incidents in Amsterdam last week,

The figure was given by French Sports Minister Gil Averous in an interview with Europe 1 on Wednesday. is a far cry from the more than 80,000 seats at the Stade de France.

Averous lamented the low number and said he was confident that ‘it will be possible to attend the match, which will be held at the Stade de France, where the French national team usually plays, as a family and in complete safety ’.

The French government has reacted with an exceptional security arrangement to the scenes of violence in Amsterdam on the 7th, with anti-Semitic attacks on Israeli fans of Maccabi Tel Aviv at the match with Ajax, which had been preceded by provocative acts by some of them the day before in the streets and at the stadium.

This will involve the deployment of 4,000 police and gendarmes around and inside the Stade de France, located in the town of Saint Denis, but also on public transport leading to the stadium and in the centre of Paris.

There will be an additional 1,600 security officers inside and at the stadium entrances put in place by the French Football Federation (FFF), a significantly higher number than usual, especially given the small number of fans expected.

Averous insisted that the decision to keep the match at the Stade de France was because ‘there was no need to back down’ or ‘’let ourselves be intimidated‘’.