Tuesday afternoon, April 28, Prime Minister Edouard Philippe announced to the National Assembly that because of the health crisis due to the coronavirus, " the 2019-2020 professional sports season (…) cannot resume before September ”. "Especially that of football".
Just before, the football director and general manager of the OGC Nice, Julien Fournier, expressed at World, this Tuesday, swe want an outright stop of the current season; unlike the Professional Football League (LFP), which still hoped to resume the current season in June. However, the leader said he was in favor of the next season starting in August, under special security conditions, and not in September.
Page Contents
After the government announcements, what is your position?
The new 2020-2021 season should start in August, in my opinion, because starting it in September would compact it too much and make it impossible to play. Except to shift the Euro again (now set for June and July 2021)... From what I understand, football will be able to start again in camera from August, before resuming normally in September (according to information from The team, with the approval of the sports ministry, matches in August could even "Stand in front of an audience limited to 5,000 people maximum").
At the beginning of April, like the president of your club, Jean-Pierre Rivère, you proposed a resumption of the current season in September and a start of the new season only at the beginning of the year 2021
They are not two dissonant voices. Perhaps Jean-Pierre’s solution will become the right one in the future, depending on how the Covid’s situation evolves. But, if the current season does not resume, the delay in the next season in January 2021 would put the clubs in an extremely difficult cash position, from my point of view. The TV rights that are still to be paid to the channels for the current season relate to the months of April, May and June. If the current season ends and the new championship is not started until 2021, it would take three to nine months without new TV rights.
Until today, the LFP still hoped to resume the current season in June. Why did you say to World be against it this Tuesday, before the government announcements?
It would have been an extremely rushed decision and I see absolutely no benefit in it. Neither from an economic point of view, nor from a health point of view, nor in terms of image. Absolutely no benefit. Often, clubs mainly put forward the economic aspect to say that it is necessary to finish the championship. However, I find that this is an analysis made a little on the surface.
Why ?
If the championship had to resume in June, it would have been very very unlikely that the broadcasters, Canal + and BeIN Sports, would pay the full fees they would have paid for the running of a normal championship. The "product" would no longer have been the same behind closed doors, chaining matches every three days.
Finally, apart from Paris-Saint-Germain, I don't think it's foolish to say that all of the French clubs depend largely on the trading, that is, the sale of players. Either to balance accounts, or to have an investment capacity on the transfer market. But what about a player who was to be transferred, whose club expects a large transfer fee and who would have been injured?
Wasn't the health of the players sufficiently taken into account?
Without friendlies, with a kind of slightly truncated preseason, it would have been a good bet to have many, many injured in all clubs. Chain matches every three days, after such a long hiatus is also psychologically anxious, then to continue with a new season of championship, even by the Euro for internationals, I do not find that serious.
And what do you mean by the question of the image?
This is what bothers me the most. If we football clubs put our players to the test every two days, how do we explain this to thousands of caregivers? How to explain that footballers are given priority over medical staff, checkout staff in supermarkets, all these professions, and I forget, who are facing the pandemic? I would be pretty uncomfortable. Football cannot come before these people.
What solution, now, to implement for the next championship?
What I have already suggested to some of my colleagues is to set up some form of redistribution fund. The clubs that would be lucky and somewhat deserve to be qualified for the European Cup for next season (which could be the case of Nice, on the basis of the results frozen on the last day of the championship disputed, and according to the chosen method) would not be 100% deserving of the TV rights and European Cup match revenues.
Let things be extremely clear. I don't want to be accused of opportunism in relation to this. If Nice were to qualify for the next European Cup, I don't think the club would deserve it 100%. No club would deserve it 100%. Aside from perhaps Paris-Saint-Germain, which dominated the head and shoulders championship. Would nice stay 6e if the championship was going to end? Not sure. The club could very well finish 4e, as it might end up maybe 9e, maybe 12e, the championship being so tight.
How to explain that in Germany the resumption of the championship is planned from May?
The situation is different in each country. There will be no uniform decision in the world of football dictated by FIFA (International Federation) or UEFA (at the European level). Each government makes a decision depending on the situation, in particular depending on the number of tests and masks available. I consider that football is neither above nor below the law. He is no exception to society.
