ANKARA
Condolences and condemnations from many important football figures in Europe, several French football clubs and divisions, as well as nationwide French sports newspaper L'Equipe, continued to pour in on Thursday after an armed assault on Wednesday against the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris.
Atletico Madrid's French winger Antoine Griezmann, Tottenham Hotspur's Belgian defender Jan Vertonghen, Arsenal’s French right-back Mathieu Debuchy and his fellow citizen Yaya Sanogo, Paris Saint-Germain's French central midfielder Blaise Matuidi, Manchester City's French midfielder Samir Nasri, Lille’s French midfielder Rio Mavuba, Olympique Lyon president Jean-Michel Aulas and many football clubs in France, such as Bordeaux, Lille, Monaco and Olympique Lyon, and French football divisions Ligue 1 and Ligue 2 each expressed their condolences to the relatives of the victims through their official Twitter accounts on Wednesday.
The now widespread "Je suis Charlie" hashtag on Twitter was used by football figures and clubs. L'Equipe paid homage to those killed and condemned the attack by emphasizing freedom of press in France in their Thursday issue.
In the title section of the newspaper, they put the scoreboard: "Liberté: 0 - Barbarie: 12" (Liberty: 0 - Barbarism: 12). Underneath the title there was a cartoon showing several shocked football fans.
French football's governing body, the Professional Football League, which is in charge of running major leagues such as Ligue 1 and Ligue 2, announced on their website that there will be one minute of silence before the games on matchday 20 of Ligue 1 and matchday 19 of Ligue 2 this weekend.
Three masked men armed with Kalashnikov automatic rifles and a rocket-launcher attacked people inside the building of the magazine and killed at least 12 people including two police officers, before they fled the building.
The magazine sparked controversy in 2006 and 2012 for publishing comic cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed.
