Paris (AFP)
More than a month of empty stands: French football submitted on Tuesday to the closed door doctrine advocated by the government, for Ligue 1 until April 15 and the next two friendly of the Blues, in unison with its European neighbors.
An OM-PSG "Classic" without spectators on March 22? This is what Marseille supporters will have to prepare for.
The Professional Football League (LFP) announced on Tuesday that all Ligue 1 and Ligue 2 matches scheduled until mid-April will be held in "closed session", the details of which must be specified on Wednesday.
The authorities followed the position of the Minister of Sports Roxana Maracineanu, who indicated on Monday that "the camera (may) become our doctrine for the organization of competitions and professional sport", after confirming that the match was held on Wednesday evening Champions League Paris SG-Borussia Dortmund in an empty stadium.
The choice was, in any case, restricted for the LFP: the competition organizers had indeed to respect the restrictions taken by ministerial decree on Tuesday, prohibiting until April 15 any gathering of more than 1,000 people, including outside.
So, unless you want to drastically limit the ticket office - 1,000 places from which you have to cut off the teams, management, officials and other personnel linked to the organization - the closed-door seemed inevitable.
- Priority to "sporting continuity" -
Another possibility mentioned initially, the postponement of certain meetings, desired by several leaders like the director general of Brest Pascal Robert, or those of OM, who wanted to negotiate a postponement of the "Classic" so as not to lose one of the biggest receipts of the season, according to a source within the club.
But after a meeting Tuesday of the college of Ligue 1 clubs, which made the health situation one of its main subjects of discussion, it was decided that at this stage, the closed camera will be "systematic" and that no postponement will be considered, we learned from sources close to the authorities.
The "sporting continuity", desired Monday by Roxana Maracineanu, will therefore be respected, with the exception of the Strasbourg-PSG match, initially scheduled for March 7 but postponed the previous evening at the request of the Bas-Rhin prefecture.
Clubs, for their part, will have to face a month of box office revenue less.
Lens inaugurated this gloomy period on Monday evening by welcoming the Orleans 2 team to a completely empty Bollaert-Delelis stadium, for a shortfall estimated at 500,000 euros by the press. A meeting that gave birth to a surreal scene when the stadium announcer tried, unnecessarily, to urge a ghost audience to chant the name of the scorer Florian Sotoca.
It will continue at the end of March with the French team, which was to face Ukraine at the Stade de France on March 27 and Finland in Lyon on the 31st, as part of its preparation for Euro-2020.
At the end of the afternoon, the President of the Federation (FFF) Noël Le Graët announced on BFM TV that these two friendly meetings will be closed, and that the one planned in the Rhône will be relocated within the enclosure from Saint-Denis.
- Championship suspended in Italy -
In camera, the best solution for all matches? Not entirely, because doubts persist around certain meetings.
This is particularly the case for the final of the Coupe de la Ligue, between PSG in Lyon on April 4 at the Stade de France. The fate of this poster, the last of this competition of which this is the last edition, must be discussed at the LFP office on Wednesday.
In Italy, the European country most affected by the epidemic, the government announced Monday evening the suspension of all sports competitions, and therefore Serie A, until April 3.
Spain and Germany, they lean for the closed door. The next two Liga days will thus be played in empty stadiums, while the Bundesliga has ensured that all scheduled matches will be played, with or without spectators depending on the decision of the regional authorities.
The lively Ruhr Dortmund-Schalke derby on Saturday will be played behind closed doors, but Union Berlin-Bayern will not be scheduled for the same day. No fans either for the friendly match between Germany and Italy on March 31 in Nuremberg.
England is, for the moment, the only major European championship spared by measures linked to the new coronavirus. But until when?
© 2020 AFP