FC Nantes coach Christian Gourcuff, here during the match against Dijon in December 2019 at La Beaujoire. - SEBASTIEN SALOM GOMIS / SIPA

He lives confinement with philosophy, dividing his time between watching matches and gardening on his property in Morbihan. In an interview with AFP, Christian Gourcuff spoke of the coronavirus crisis, saying that it was "a lesson" that should invite football to "review its calendars".

And like Jean-Pierre Rivière, the president of OGC Nice, the coach of FC Nantes proposes to postpone the next Ligue 1 season to start it "in February". "It would be a good time to do it," he said. We would have time to finish this season and prepare. ” Even if this would require "a fairly profound change in mentalities" across Europe, Christian Gourcuff believes that it would align the European calendar to that of the American continent for the 2022 World Cup.

Football is "a summer sport", pleads the Nantes coach

“I think that football is a summer sport, pleads the coach. In winter, we play in appalling conditions, including for spectators. It is a tradition that we have kept for a long time when the conditions are ideal in summer, especially now that we play at night.

Our file on the coronavirus

And if the idea of ​​the long summer break was initially to avoid empty stadiums during the holidays, the argument does not hold any more since most of the championships resume in the middle of August and that the holidays have more and more more likely to be spread out over the whole year, he insists.

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  • Covid 19
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