Saint-Etienne (AFP)
The general manager of AS Saint-Etienne, Xavier Thuilot denounced Tuesday "a general lack of anticipation" after the postponement, following four positive cases of Covid-19 in the Marseille workforce, of the opening match of Ligue 1 football, Marseille-Saint-Etienne, scheduled for Friday.
"I am stunned by the general lack of anticipation. There is a real organizational problem," said the Stéphanois leader in an interview with the daily La Tribune-Le Progrès, posted on his website.
"We know that we will have difficulty playing the 380 games of the season. There is even a 99% chance that we will not be able to. In March, we could say that it fell on us but today, this is not normal that we cannot predict, "he complained.
"We are starting a championship without the instructions for use. It's incredible. How the League and the FFF are going to do to ensure sporting fairness?", He asked, recalling that "last year, there has had winners and losers ".
"We are referring to regulations that are unsuitable, almost ancestral," he stressed.
"We have long periods of inactivity then, suddenly, we will play three times in seven days", insists Thuilot again.
The Greens played in the Coupe de France final on July 24 against Paris-SG and will play their next official match on August 30 against Lorient at home, more than a month later before a fifteen-day international break in after which there will be three meetings in one week for the Stéphanois against Strasbourg, Marseille and Nantes.
"We cannot be asked to make ten or fifteen times more efforts than those required of the rest of the population. We are tested twice a week and as soon as there is one who coughs, we stop. We are willing to undergo three more constraints but this is beyond measure, "he added.
"The goal is not to say that we do not care about the virus but to define the conditions that allow us to practice our activity", concluded the director general of ASSE.
© 2020 AFP