Resume? Not resume? Whether it is football, rugby, handball, basketball or volleyball, the question of the resumption of the national championships has been agitating, for several days, all clubs and professional leagues of collective sports, in France as in all of Europe.
Given the health situation caused by the coronavirus epidemic, some decided not to wait and to draw a line under the current season. In Italy, which has more than 8,200 deaths due to Covid-19, the rugby federation gave the final whistle to the men's and women's championships on Friday, March 27, in all age categories.
"This decision implies the non-assignment of the titles of Italian champion and the cancellation of all the promotion and relegation processes", said the Italian rugby federation, which is the first of the major transalpine sports bodies to give up going further.
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"Do everything so that the championships go to the end"
In other flagship team sports in Italy, we continue to believe that it will be possible to replay and end the season. We even say we are resolved to achieve it. As in Serie A, the football championship.
"We will do everything to ensure that the championships go to the end, if necessary we will ask UEFA and FIFA to go beyond June 30 and play in July or August", said Wednesday 25 March Gabriele Gravina, the president of the Italian Football Federation.
Italian football is far from alone in making such a speech. The other European football leagues all intend to complete the exercise at all costs. In France, the Professional Football League reaffirmed on Monday that its "Priority objective (East) to end the season no later than June 30 or possibly July 15 ".
As for the German League, it keeps repeating that its goal, "If it is authorized and obviously if it is acceptable in matters of public health", is to finish the season before June 30, if necessary by playing behind closed doors.
Loss of ticketing and television rights receipts
Wanting to do everything to finish its national championships is not a specificity of football. In France, the Top 14 clubs, the rugby championship, also subscribe to this perspective: by counting on a recovery in late May or early June, they imagine they will be able to compete in a final in mid-July.
And to stay in France, the steering committee of the National Volleyball League refused to stop the Men's League A season definitively, a stop yet requested by 13 of the 14 clubs playing there. French handball has set up a working group to study the possible follow-up to the season. Its conclusions are expected no later than April 15.
If team sports, all over Europe, cling to the idea of a possible rapid resumption of national competitions, it is that the current suspension of these latter weighs heavily financially. No matches mean no ticket sales and, if this continues, less revenue also from television rights, the two main sources of income for major championships.
Wage cuts and partial unemployment
In football, for example, if the season does not resume, the possible losses are estimated at around 700 million euros in Spain (including 500 million for television rights alone), more than 700 million in Italy and Germany, and up to 400 million in France.
To pass the course, some clubs have negotiated or are negotiating ad hoc wage cuts with their players. This is the case in Germany (Mönchengladbach, Bremen, Schalke 04, Dortmund, Leverkusen, Munich), or in Spain (at FC Barcelona, according to Spanish media). PSG management is also considering it, according to The team.
Meanwhile, in France, it is mainly the use of short-time working which is used by rugby (all of the Top 14) and football (PSG, Marseille, Lyon, Montpellier, Reims, Nice, Brest, Amiens). A call for public funding that makes some teeth cringe.
Deferred takeover in China
However, even if the health situation improved fairly quickly, a recovery does not look as simple as that. Witness what is happening in China. After being interrupted in January, the Chinese Super League, the football championship, was planning to return to the pitch: there was talk of doing so last week, before the dates of April 18 and then May 2 were mentioned.
But now it is late May or early June that is mentioned, because a Brazilian player playing in the second division, then the Belgian Marouane Fellaini, playing at Shandong Luneng, Super League club, caught the coronavirus. Basketball, another major sport in China, will also probably not be able to resume in April as had been envisaged. What, perhaps, temper the desire to quickly resume the various European championships.
