” It’s a shame. “ The message of indignation was published Thursday, May 6 in the evening on Twitter by the Norwegian player of the Olympique Lyonnais (OL), Ada Hegerberg. A few hours earlier, the sports daily The team published an article in which he announced the reduction of the French women’s football championship by 1re Division of twelve to ten teams.
“Two teams will be relegated at the end of this season, but no climb will be recorded”, the newspaper said. At the end of April, the French Football Federation (FFF) announced that the women’s 2e Division would not resume due to sanitary conditions.
“The World Cup in France [en 2019] was just an illusion. You might as well have a small tournament one weekend in May if we disturb the FFF “, quipped Ada Hegerberg, the first winner in 2018 of the Golden Ball, which rewards the best footballer in Europe.
She was quickly followed by her teammate, Wendie Renard: “Since the 2019 World Cup, French women’s football has been on the decline”, reacted the one who is the captain of OL, before calling on its president, Jean-Michel Aulas, as well as the leaders of the FFF, not to let “Die our championship and our sport”.
“There is currently no decision taken”, “The FFF will present the best solution”, tempered Mr. Aulas, in charge of women’s football within the executive committee of the FFF. Contacted, Friday by The world, the federation declared that nothing would be acted “Before the end of the championship, to preserve sporting fairness”, while explaining that it reserves the right to “Reconsider the regulations to preserve the interest of the flagship competition of women’s football”. “In the current state of affairs, when a championship does not end, there is no accession and this is the case with D2”, recalled the president of OL.
“Is it better to have ten very structured and competitive clubs?” “
Another element could also come to influence the format of the championship: the FFF monitors the evolution of the situation in the Girondins de Bordeaux, placed under the protection of the commercial court and in search of one or more buyers. If no takeover offer was successful, a recovery, or even a liquidation could seal the fate of the club, and therefore of its women’s section, which has just won its first qualification for the Champions League.
These questions about the structure of the first women’s division arise while it remains unbalanced: since 2006, OL have dominated the national scene and won the titles of champion of France. This season, however, Paris-Saint-Germain seems to have the weapons to compete: the capital club is the current leader of the D1 and the Parisiennes have overthrown the Lyonnaises in the quarterfinals of the Champions League, in April, before d ‘be eliminated by FC Barcelona in the semi-finals on May 2.
Jean-Michel Aulas has not completely ruled out the option of a first division reduced to ten teams, discerning possible advantages: “Is it better to have ten very structured and competitive clubs with a license imposing obligations of reception, stadium, supervision, fields, even if it means playing more matches than what we are doing now, or to have twelve teams like today?” with significant differences in level? “
Dominating for a long time on the international scene through OL, six-time European champion, French women’s football appears to be more and more challenged by its English and Spanish neighbors, in particular, where professionalization has taken on new impetus.
The Spanish Women’s League will turn professional from next season and will feature sixteen clubs instead of the current eighteen. In England, the twelve clubs of the Elite championship are all professional and affiliated to men’s clubs. They will benefit, from the 2021-2022 season and for a period of three years, from a serious financial contribution with the television rights (several million pounds) that the BBC and Sky Sports will pay to broadcast the matches.
This year, for the first time since 2014, no French club will be in the final of the Women’s Champions League: it will return, Sunday, May 16, either to FC Barcelona or to Chelsea.
