INTERVIEW
The coronavirus continues to circulate in France, but the football planet continues to live. While OL and PSG will play this week in the semi-finals of the Champions League, Ligue 1 will resume on Friday evening. But the Girondins de Bordeaux, who hoped for a prefectural exemption to increase to 10,000 spectators against FC Nantes, saw their request rejected by the Gironde prefecture (any gathering of more than 5,000 people is supposed to be prohibited, editor's note). Asked to respond, Monday on Europe 1, the general manager of the Professional Football League (LFP) said he was "surprised" and denounced a "double standard", with the Vendée park of Puy du Fou, which was able to accommodate 9,000 people on Saturday evening. Didier Quillot affirmed that the LFP would be "in support" of the clubs which would like to request exemptions to accommodate more than 5,000 people.
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"We can wonder about this ceiling of 5,000 people"
"At the LFP, we have defined a health protocol for the reception of the public up to 5,000 people in strict compliance with health measures and beyond, from the moment the prefect can give a derogation", explains the director general of the League. "It is from this protocol which strictly respects sanitary conditions that the clubs will request exemptions and we will help them and be in support of the local ARS so that there is uniformity in the decisions that will be taken" , details Didier Quillot.
Because according to him, in all the stadiums of Ligue 1 and Ligue 2, "there is clearly the place" to accommodate more than 5,000 people. "We can wonder about this ceiling of 5,000 people", slips Didier Quillot, who believes that "from the total tonnage of each stadium would make much more sense".
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Finally, while more and more cases are detected or suspected within the workforce of French clubs, Didier Quillot indicates that the LFP wanted "a uniformity in the way in which the clubs will test the players and possibly isolate them according to the tests . "