In any football game, you need a referee. In the part which brought certain hexagonal actors of the small world of the round ball to be opposed on the legal ground – the clubs of Lyon, Amiens and Toulouse against the League of football (LFP) -, it is with the Council of State that this role has been devolved. And more particularly to judge Bertrand Dacosta.
The magistrate of the supreme administrative court decided. After hearing the three clubs and the body that manages professional football during a three-hour hearing Thursday, June 4, he rejected Lyon’s request but approved Amiens’s and Toulouse’s requests. These decisions were announced on Tuesday, June 9.
The three teams challenged the decision taken by the League's board of directors on April 30 to stop the Ligue 1 championship in mid-March, after 28 days out of 38, due to the epidemic of Covid-19, and to freeze the classification according to a quotient calculated from the number of points taken in relation to the number of matches played.
The motivations and objectives of Lyon, Amiens and Toulouse were, however, not quite the same.
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"No serious doubt about the legality" of the decision to stop everything
Olympique Lyonnais (OL) demanded that the championship be able to resume and end almost normally. Its president, Jean-Michel Aulas, has continued to deplore a judgment in recent weeks "Precipitated" and " against a current ", highlighting the fact that the other major championships in Europe have resumed (Germany) or are preparing to do so (Spain, Italy and England).
Mr. Aulas urged the LFP to "Reconsider the conditions allowing to consider a resumption of competitions in August, or failing this, to pronounce the 2019-2020 white season".
Following the decision to close the championship definitively in mid-March, OL ended on the 7the rank, outside the qualifying places for European competitions. By going to the end of the current season, the club could still hope to qualify. The white season option, by renewing the European qualifiers from 2018-2019, would also have offered him this qualification.
At the hearing, Thursday, June 4, Mr. Aulas stressed the economic shortfall of a season without the European Cup, which would be a first for his club since 1997.
To justify his decision, the judge in summary proceedings considers that"There is no serious doubt about the legality" of the decision taken by the League, "Which weighed the advantages and disadvantages of an immediate cessation of the championship, while a very great uncertainty affected the assumption of a possible restarting of the competitions in good time".
He recalls that "The Prime Minister and the Minister of Health announced at the end of April that the 2019-2020 season of professional team sports competitions could not resume due to the health context" and "Moreover, on that date, UEFA had informed the national federations of its wish that the competitions end on 3 August 2020 at the latest".
"Re-examine the question of the format of Ligue 1 for the 2020-2021 season"
For their part, Amiens and Toulouse did not contest the end of the Ligue 1 season, but the final classification having led to their relegation without having been able to play all the matches. Amiens was classified penultimate (19e on 20) before the stop and Toulouse last.
“There were 30 points left to distribute and we were four lengths from Nîmes! Football lacked humanity in this decision ", Had repeatedly deplored since the end of April, the president of Amiens, Bernard Joannin, denouncing a decision "Unfair" hitting his club.
"What is disputed is the change in the rules of the game during competition. According to the texts, relegations are made after the 38e day, and not before ", said the lawyer at the State Council Me Guillaume Tapie, who advises Amiens.
"The decision to proceed to a classification of the Ligue 1 and Ligue 2 championships does not necessarily lead, by itself, to the relegation to Ligue 2 of the last two of the Ligue 1 championship, either, moreover, than the accession to Ligue 1 of the first two of Ligue 2 ", argues the judge of summary proceedings, according to which the relegation of the two clubs involves a "Serious and immediate impairment" to their interests.
"We are proud and honored to have defended sports fairness before the highest administrative body which has made football values win", reacted Bernard Joannin.
"The board of directors of the League could not legally rely, in deciding to relegate the last two of the League 1 ranking, on the fact that the current agreement concluded with the French Football Federation (FFF) provides for a limit of twenty clubs, while this agreement ends on June 30 and a new agreement will have to be signed ", adds the judge.
Given the fact that two clubs (Lens, Lorient) will go up from Ligue 2 to Ligue 1 next season, not relegating Amiens and Toulouse would lead to go from 20 to 22 clubs in Ligue 1. The LFP had dismissed this track, recalling that the convention which binds it to the French Football Federation (FFF) limits to 20 the number of clubs entered in Ligue 1.
The judge therefore orders the League, "In conjunction with the competent bodies of the FFF, to re-examine the question of the format of Ligue 1 for the 2020-2021 season".
Same problem at amateur level
The fact that the request from Amiens and Toulouse has been approved by the Council of State will interest clubs at lower amateur levels. Thirty of them have also filed appeals to the court contesting the final classification of the championships and the maintenance of relegations decided on April 16 by the executive committee of the Football Federation, which is responsible for amateur competitions. Their requests were examined by the Council of State on Monday.
Suspending the relegation of Amiens and Toulouse amounts to calling into question the policy of the president of the FFF, Noël Le Graët, who said he wanted to keep, despite the current crisis, the principle of ascent and descent in all championships.
Do not relegate "Contains a kind of sporting inconsistency" which, moreover, "Would have upset the pyramid of competitions", justified Loïc Poupot, the FFF’s lawyer on Monday during the hearing at the Council of State.
The Supreme Administrative Court’s order will be issued Wednesday afternoon or more likely Thursday, said judge Bertrand Dacosta, who led the hearings, on Monday.
