PSG request to move league match before Liverpool tie

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.

Liverpool are set to host Fulham in the Premier League on 11 April.

In response to PSG’s postponement 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 was 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”.

“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. The European champions won 8-2 on aggregate.

Ultimately, the final call is with the LFP, and their stance is they will look to assist French clubs that are playing in Europe.

The LFP also confirmed Strasbourg have requested their league game at Brest on that same weekend to be postponed as it comes in between their Conference League games against Mainz.