La Marseillaise booed in Albania after French gaffe

Pulse News Agency International by AFP 21:48 - 14 August 2024

Albanian supporters booed La Marseillaise

Two months after Albania's footballers were left furious when the wrong national anthem was played at a Euro 2020 qualifier in France, the French anthem was roundly booed in the return match on Sunday.

France played the Andorran anthem by mistake at the Stade de France in September.

After the angry Albanians protested and refused to play until the correct music was played, the correct anthem was found and the game kicked off more than five minutes late.

On Sunday, a local singer was charged with performing a rendition of La Marseillaise, but she was largely drowned out by widespread whistling from a 22,000 crowd.

France were fined 20,000 euros ($22,099) by UEFA for their mistake, while President Macron made an official apology for the embarrassing oversight.

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