What will the resumption of the rugby championship look like? Only certainty, the National League (LNR) has already abandoned this week one of the 2 scenarios on which it worked, namely final stages of the Top 14 by mid-July, the modalities of deconfinement n ' not yet fully known - they will be on Tuesday with announcements from Prime Minister Edouard Philippe.
"They stayed two months without doing anything"
So there remains scenario number 2, if there is a recovery. The idea would be to play the semi-finals and a final at the end of the summer. Why so late? To re-athletize the rugby players, who will need at least two months. "What you have to do is not do anything, tell them, 'here you have a ball you can play.' That is not possible ", explains to Europe 1, Doctor Bernard Dusfour, head of the medical commission of the National Rugby League (LNR). They stayed two months without doing anything. It's a bit of a difference with football, it's about safety. "
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But before thinking of recovery, we must first find the paths of training. As with football, the week of May 11 could be used to test players. "When they arrive, we test them and we divide them into three groups: 'you are not cured, you come home, we will take care of you but you do not set foot in the club again. Second case , you have encountered the virus, but you are cured. Him, we are going to start it again but with very serious surveillance ", he will have the most thorough cardiological assessment", details Bernard Dusfour. "Then there will be the group of players where it will be: you haven't met anything, you're going to get back into sport but we're going to watch you closely anyway and we're going to protect you so that you don't catch the virus."
The rugby health protocol is still in the state of "canvas, there are small working groups and discussions continue," said the NRL doctor. "The bottom line is that everyone's scientific contribution is important." Once all these prerequisites have been accepted, resumption can then take place. Presumably at the end of August, in the form of final stages, based on the current classification. Which would give posters for the Bordeaux-Bègles semi-finals against Toulon and Racing 92 against Lou.
"A final at the Stade de France behind closed doors would be grim"
A scenario that inevitably pleases the president of the Lyon Olympic University rugby (Lou), Yann Roubert: "As long as there is hope, we believe in it and we say to ourselves that it would be the solution of the least evil. It would be the less bad. Indeed, we hope to be able to replay rugby at the end of August. This would mean that it is a good sign, the country would have started up a bit and we could finally replay rugby, "said the club's boss. Rhone, second in the top 14, and who will recover his former player Mathieu Bastareaud, back from his New York getaway.
As for whether the matches will have to be played in public or not, Roubert has his little idea: "Obviously we would like to have public, because a final at the Stade de France in camera would be sinister. But it does not depend on we will respect the sanitary conditions. " Apart from these final stages, the rest of the classification should remain frozen: "A priori, there will be neither relegation, nor mounted, it is an imperfect solution, sometimes unfair. There are many incongruities in this formula, but we says that it is undoubtedly the least bad ", advances fatalist the boss of Lou.
The Covid-19, a huge financial impact on the Top 14
The financial gendarme of professional rugby, the DNACG, for its part is sounding the alarm bell: the financial crisis, which is in the process of generating the health crisis, endangers many professional clubs. According to the National Directorate of Aid and Management Control, more than half of the top 14 clubs are likely to have serious cash flow problems next season, due to the loss of sponsorship, which represents a huge share of the budget of clubs.
"There are clubs that will lose between 30 and 40% in sponsorship," warns Bernard Pontneau, the president of the Pau section. "So today, making a budget is very complicated. So, we lower our standard of living, there is no choice. We must cut corners on the payroll." The National Rugby League, in order to help clubs in difficulty, has planned to borrow 15 million euros.