Defending champions of UEFA Champions League, Paris St-Germain have asked to postpone their Ligue 1 game against title rivals Lens which is sandwiched between the two legs of their Champions League quarter-final against Liverpool.
PSG are scheduled to visit Lens in a top-of-the-table encounter on Saturday, 11 April – three days after hosting Arne Slot’s side and three days before the second leg at Anfield.
In response to PSG’s request to France’s Ligue de Football Professionel (LFP), Lens – who are chasing a first league title since 1998 – issued a statement saying they are strongly against the “troubling sentiment” if the fixture is moved to a later date.
Lens added that their domestic league risks being “gradually relegated to the status of an adjustment variable at the whim of the European imperatives of some”.
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“Beyond this specific case, the question raised is a more fundamental one: that of the respect due to the competition itself,” a club statement said.
“For one is entitled to wonder when, on its own soil, the league sometimes seems to be relegated to second place behind other ambitions, however legitimate they may be.”
Second-placed Lens currently trail leaders PSG by one point – and Lens head coach Pierre Sage said after Sunday’s 5-1 win over Angers that his side did not agree with a postponement.
In PSG’s previous Champions League tie against Chelsea Luis Enrique’s side had the weekend off in between the two legs because their game against Nantes was postponed after a similar request to help them prepare as effectively as possible. The European champions won 8-2 on aggregate.
