EDITORIAL - "Professional football and amateur football should be hand in hand"

Amateur football is in great danger. Thursday, the French Football Federation unveiled a 30 million euros aid plan for amateur clubs. But for you, there is another problem, it is the programming of professional matches next season, which can be very unfavorable to amateur football. 

What are you doing on Sunday? Well there is football! Yes, but what football? Are you going to play or are you going to watch your favorite team on TV? The choice will be tough next season for enthusiasts. Sunday will now be a very busy day. If we look at the programming of Ligue 1, there will be a match at 1 p.m., four games at 3 p.m., one at 5 p.m. and the big poster at 9 p.m.

What catches my attention are these four matches at 3 p.m. This is the moment when the amateur football meetings take place, these Sunday afternoons when we put on crampons all over France in small clubs. They are the base, the Sunday footballers. How it will go ? There will necessarily be, each week, a few absent because their heart club is playing at that time. There will also be fewer people around the field because the competition will be tough between a local team match and a meeting with PSG or OM for example.

Yes, this programming can have a negative impact on amateur football. I know that it was planned well before the health crisis, but there, amateur sport is already on the brink, and I am afraid that it is the coup de grace for some clubs. 

These professional matches on Sunday afternoons still make it easier for families to go to the stadium.

Of course, that is part of the arguments to defend this programming. We also say that in England for example, matches are often held in the afternoon, and that it works very well. But by saying that, we only reason in terms of football as a spectacle, not as a sport for amateurs. In England, it is only the Premier League that counts, amateurs are really seen as the last wheel of the coach. I don't want to see that in France.

The passion of children for football, it is not only nourished by professional meetings that they will see in the stands, it is also nourished by the practice of this sport. If we want to think about the future of soccer in the country, professional soccer and amateur soccer should go hand in hand. Otherwise, in the end, everyone will lose.

With the health crisis, amateur clubs already fear for their partnerships, with sponsors very affected by the crisis, they also fear losing licensees for financial or health reasons, if in addition the TV programming puts them in the way , they will be suffocated. Let the federation help them, very good. Requesting state aid also seems logical to me. But if at the same time the diffusers soap their board, what is it for? We should all pull in the same direction. And there I have the impression that it is not the case.