Paris (AFP)
There are "still a fortnight left" to decide if the main French championships can resume, said Patrick Wolff, president of the National Association of Professional Sports Leagues (basketball, cycling, football, handball, rugby, volleyball). If he judges that the crisis is impacting all clubs, he believes that it should be an opportunity to "rebuild different fundamentals" to protect professional sport from a speculative model.
Q: What economic impact will the coronavirus pandemic have for French professional sport? We evoke 1.45 billion euros if the season stops ...
A: The estimation work is not finished. It is not the same thing if the championships resume or if they stop, if the televisions pay or not. What will be the impact of short-time working, lower wages? We are all talking about the end of the season, but next season will not be easy. The economy will not be readable, at best, before the end of the year. So sponsoring companies may need to review their positions next season. Too many parameters are pending.
Q: Are you worried that the championships may not resume?
A: To complete the seasons, you must have enough days to avoid accidents for the players. We must be able to resume in early June. To be able to resume training on time, a decision must be made in early May. We still have a fortnight to decide. In any case, there will be losses.
The European cups will be more complicated. There are countries that have entered the crisis later than the others. If we could leave, which is not certain, it is not certain that others can do it.
Q: In the current context, are lower wages a good solution?
A: My answer may surprise, but I am not sure. When a system is weakened, there are predators. One can imagine that if the wages are reduced significantly, some players will hear the sirens of other clubs, foreign or not, who will be tempted to inject large sums to try to recover players at a good price. It is not specific to football.
Q: Does this crisis reveal the fragility of the system?
A: I would like someone to quote me an area that is not shaken. The density of the crisis does not depend on the club's budget, it affects a large football team like a volleyball team. It is a question of proportions. In a sport like football, there are a lot of TV rights. Sports which do not have receipts from broadcasters, they must live on their economy, their spectators, their local sponsors. This crisis affects everyone. Today, 90% of clubs are in the real economy, and will have to adjust to this economic space. You have 10%, all sports combined, which are a little above ground, because they benefit from exceptional resources, for various reasons. These too are vulnerable.
The system is unbalanced because the sport is built on one goal, that is to be champion at the end of the year. While traditional businesses are built on a system of earning enough money to stay in the market, pay workers and make investments. In sports, the asshole is the finalist who has money in the bank but who lost the match against someone who spent much more, even in an entirely unreasonable way.
Q: What do you expect from the government?
A: In an emergency, we are asking for nothing other than the treatment of businesses, which means postponing the deadline for certain expenses, cash facilities to get through. It's in place and it works pretty well. Afterwards, the government will have a role to facilitate the recovery and help us rebuild somewhat different fundamentals. Sport is not, contrary to what many say, a spectacle. There have to be a number of rules to save this state of mind. Virus or no virus, the time had come to deal with this.
Currently, what is not healthy is that in a certain number of sports, we try to train us towards American models, which are purely financial models, models of spectacle absolutely not adapted to the European mentality. When I see a company (CVC Capital Partners, editor's note) buy all rugby competitions in Europe, I tell myself that a system is needed to prevent this.
Interview by Andrea BAMBINO
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