The ultras of Paris Saint-Germain are preparing for the second leg of their UEFA Champions League Round of 16 match against Barcelona this season. Last month, the Parisians visited the Nou Camp and came away with a 4-1 victory thanks to a hat-trick from Kylian Mbappe. Mauricio Pochettino’s side would welcome their opponents to the Parc des Princes on Wednesday, in a stadium that would have been packed with tens of thousands of PSG fans if not for the pandemic’s social distancing rules.

PSG ultras have been criticized as sexist after holding up a poster that referred to Shakira as a prostitute.

The statement “Shakira a La Jonquera,” was on one of their banners, referring to a town on the French-Spanish border with a bad reputation for prostitution.

One banner from the PSG fans read “Shakira a La Jonquera”

“Barcelona is not welcome” and “Europe on its knees, all of Paris standing” were among the banners carried by others.

The banners were deemed sexist and needlessly offensive to the ‘Beautiful Liar’ singer by many viewers, prompting Shakira fans to use the hashtag #RespectShakira to trend on social media.

Even though supporters were not permitted to watch from the stands, they made their presence felt in the French capital today with a display of solidarity.

“Shakira doesn’t deserve this,” one Twitter user remarked. “No woman is deserving of this.”

“Shakira deserves nothing but respect,” one person commented.

Another tweeted: “LOL. PSG fans coming after Shakira? She’s literally held more Champions League trophies than your entire institution. Football is about respect.” ” Absolutely disgraceful act by PSG supporters to harass Shakira like that simply [because] she is linked with Barcelona.”

A fourth added: “PSG fans targeting Shakira just because she happens to be Pique’s wife. The irony that this took place on International Women’s Day. Such lowlifes.”

Someone else tweeted: “PSG fans slandering Shakira now? Disgraceful. Shakira is bigger than your club, BTW.”

Shakira is one of the most well-known musicians in the world, and she has had a long association with football, having performed before the 2006 FIFA World Cup final.

Shakira also created the official theme song for the next World Cup, which took place four years later in South Africa, and during which she met and married Spanish defender Gerard Pique.

Shakira’s claim to fame in Spain is that she is married to a World Cup-winning defender and that she frequently attends games at the Nou Camp – but no one could have guessed that she would once again become the target of football fans before of their match against Barcelona.

“You could start to feel that the Champions League game would be important when we signed for PSG,” Pochettino stated before of the first leg.

“It’s our clear objective to win the Champions League and we understand the responsibility and the excitement.

“When I talk about obsession, I mean that those of us in football talk about passion and that’s an obsession too.

“Sometimes you don’t know which but you love this sport desperately, thinking about it constantly, 24 hours a day, and I see that obsession as a positive thing: a passion so great that it’s overflowing, on the verge of obsession.”

Shakira and Barcelona ace Pique, 34, have two sons, Milan and Sasha, and began dating in 2011.

Pique is out of this week’s match owing to a knee injury, but PSG fans tried to frighten their opponents anyhow.