Paris (AFP)

Football is divided, rugby wants to end the season at all costs but above all not behind closed doors: the debate on the date for resumption of competitions and its modalities does not stop agitating the two main French collective sports while waiting for the government arbitrations on the timetable for deconfinement.

Football: objective June 17 but unanimity of facade

French football is torn and torn when it comes to thinking about returning to competition. While there are 17 dates to be found including the finals of the Coupe de la Ligue and Coupe de France as well as the play-offs, the office of the Professional Football League (LFP) voted unanimously for a resumption of Ligue 1 on June 17 and an end on July 25, after a very intense sprint, with matches every three days.

But discordant voices are already heard.

Sylvain Kastendeuch, the president of the National Union of French Players (UNFP), called on Monday to "give up" the current championship and the influential president of Lyon Jean-Michel Aulas, supported by his Nice counterpart Jean-Pierre Rivère, activist of his side for a recovery in the fall and a 2020/2021 fiscal year spread over the next calendar year, after having abandoned the idea of ​​a white season.

Resuming the championship is in any case of crucial economic interest for clubs which no longer touch their television rights, suspended by the broadcasters Canal + and BeIN Sports at the start of the crisis. "If we can keep this date (June 17), it's good," said Marseille president Jacques-Henri Eyraud on RTL on Wednesday.

"Football will resume, but it can only resume when sanitary conditions are met," he said.

In addition to the L1, Ligue 2, the National (third level) and the first female division hope to complete the current exercise.

Rugby: fear of the void

The National Rugby League continues to cling to a recovery scenario and thus avoid matches behind closed doors. After canceling the Nice semi-finals in June, then burying the hypothesis of a Top 14 final on July 18, the LNR intends to save the furniture by closing the 2019-2020 season before attacking the 1st day of the next.

A complicated scenario, especially at the logistical level. Especially since, according to information from AFP, the re-athletics period required for players before the resumption of matches is estimated between eight and twelve weeks. The Top 14 could therefore not end before September, depending on the dates of release from confinement.

"In any case, it is the Ministry of Sports who will say + Yes, you can go + or + No, you can not +", explained to AFP Bernard Dusfour, president of the medical commission of the LNR.

"If we have reliable tests that allow us to say that this player is not contaminating, it will be a good thing. As long as we do not have this certainty that the players cannot contaminate themselves, it does not will not happen, "he added.

A recovery from May 11? Sports ministry urges "caution"

In this very uncertain context, the publication by the French Federation of Underwater Sports and Studies (FFESSM) of the minutes of a meeting held on Friday at the Ministry of Sports to study a timetable for deconfinement has further sown the confusion.

According to this note, signed by the president of the French National Olympic and Sports Committee (CNOSF) Denis Masseglia and sent to the federations, the ministry proposed "the resumption of outdoor sport for the general public" as of May 11, the date of the start of deconfinement decided by the President of the Republic Emmanuel Macron.

The document also mentions "a resumption of closed-door competitions for the professional leagues until the end of the season" and the "establishment of a health and medical doctrine" to support the resumption of training. The return to "federal and associative activities" would take place in three stages, from May 11 to August-September.

The Sports Ministry, questioned by AFP, however invited to take this document with "great caution".

"There are a whole series of meetings and things are evolving enormously, we consult in all directions and we do a lot of scenarios and tracks, and we will choose a scenario by sector of activity that we will propose to the Prime Minister. We will offer a canvas to the deconfinement cell headed by Jean Castex and it is not because we are proposing things that they will be acted on, "explained the Ministry of Sports.

Sports Minister Roxana Maracineanu warned on Eurosport on Wednesday: "What is certain is that sport will not be a priority in our society. It is not a priority today in decisions."

© 2020 AFP