It is a timid rapprochement, but one that in no way constitutes a final solution to all the problems of French football. Wednesday, May 20, the 40 elite clubs and football families (players, coaches, referees ...) adopted by a small majority the transition from Ligue 2 to 22 teams for the 2020-2021 season. A decision which made it possible to save relegable Le Mans and Orleans while welcoming the promoted Pau and Dunkirk.
🚨 After an electronic vote, the @LFPfr General Assembly decided that the @ DominosLigue2 championship will be played at 22 clubs during the 2020/2021 season.
📝➡️ https://t.co/WRmsPc4oTZ pic.twitter.com/AqoSMFDhEk
An enlargement of the second division which is however only provisional. At the end of next season, the last four teams will descend to National (against two downhill normally) and the L2 will drop to 20 teams.
But the agreement, adopted at 57% by the General Assembly of the League, remains under the threat of a veto from the Federation (FFF). "I will look at our texts and we will make a decision at the beginning of next week", declared to the daily L'Équipe its president Noël Le Graët, previously hostile to such reform.
According to the regulations, the executive committee of the FFF may take up "to possibly reform them, all the decisions taken by the Assembly and by the elected or appointed bodies of the LFP, which it would consider contrary to the best interests of the football or statutes and regulations ".
TV rights: L1 makes a move
French football which has not completely resolved the economic aspect of this crisis either. The new TV rights contract (1.217 billion euros per year, between 2020 and 2024) threatened to spoil the atmosphere between clubs of L1 and L2 who opposed their distribution.
On Wednesday, an agreement eased tensions. The elite groups have accepted the idea of increasing the amount received by those in the anteroom, today capped at 110 million euros, by freezing an envelope of 25 million additional euros.
If this gesture at 135 million euros remains below the demands of the L2 teams (162 million euros), "a door has opened," Le Mans president Thierry Gomez told AFP. But beware of the draft.
The GA of the League did not vote the final distribution (which requires the unanimity of the clubs). It is up to a working group made up of leaders from the two divisions, under the aegis of Noël Le Graët, to negotiate the final "deal" by mid-June. In the balance, the TV rights, therefore, but also the governance reform of the LFP, the clubs of L1 being ready to drop a few million against more power in the instances.
"We had indicated that the de-cap on the L2 should be accompanied by a commitment from the Federation and the Ministry of Sports for governance" of the League which showed "shortcomings, to say the least, extremely important", confirms to AFP Jean-Michel Aulas, president of Lyon and of the college of clubs of L1.
End of season in court
Why two L1 clubs (Amiens and Toulouse) go down and none of L2? The Toulouse club pointed to this inconsistency while relegations were also maintained for the amateur championships, managed by the Federation. "I note that there are two different rules for the same game. And for the same period," said Toulouse FC president Olivier Sadran during the GA, according to comments reported by L'Équipe.
Amiens, who has filed two applications with the Paris Administrative Court to contest his descent, has not yet reacted. But the Picard club has surely found one more argument in the battle which it is preparing to wage before justice.
"There is a problem of fairness," also raised Jean-Michel Aulas, who also sees it as an additional means for Lyon to challenge the terms of stopping the classification. "This gives a lot of arguments to the appeals we have filed".
Pending relegations and promotions
The FFF, organizer of the National championship (3rd division), decided last week that "the question of the organization of the play-off between the 18th of Ligue 2 and the 3rd of National 1 will be examined later by the Executive Committee". For its part, the LFP, which is in charge of the L2, did not include this item on the agenda of the GA held on Wednesday, believing that the 2020-2021 season was definitively closed.
This reasoning makes unhappy on the side of Boulogne-sur-mer, third of National, but also of Ajaccio, Troyes and Clermont, in position to dispute barrages of accession in L1. The winners are called Nîmes and Niort, 18th in L1 and L2 respectively.
"The fact that we have stopped the Championship makes it impossible for us to reorganize a match that is part of a closed Championship," said Niort President Karim Fradin on Thursday.
With AFP
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