The president of the National Rugby League (LNR) released the "vital" card.

At a press conference on August 31, Paul Goze ruled that professional rugby was in danger if the championship failed to resume as quickly as possible.

"We must play again quickly, from next weekend, of course," said Paul Goze.

The desire of the president of the LNR seems on the verge of being fulfilled since the Top 14, which brings together the elite of French clubs, must resume Friday, September 4 with a confrontation between Montpellier and Pau.

But that will not be enough to reassure Paul Goze because another Top 14 match, also scheduled for Friday evening, between the French Stadium and UBB, had to be postponed due to the Covid-19.

This first hitch in the Top 14 calendar foreshadows a very difficult 2020/2021 season to complete.

Despite the implementation of health measures, several clubs have had to deplore cases of contamination.

According to the Covid protocol adopted by the NRL, a match will be postponed if three cases are detected within the professional group of the same team.

And the French Stadium, forced to place its entire collective in isolation on August 10, after the discovery of many cases, itself requested the postponement of its first match of the season, arguing in particular that players had been victims of "lung damage".

In a press release released on September 1, the LNR explains having acceded to the request of the Parisian club, which "was unable to align this weekend (September 4) the required number of frontline players under conditions to ensure the safety of players ".

But the body also announced that it had seized its disciplinary and rules committee, "in order to determine the responsibility of the Stade Français Paris in this situation under its management of the offseason".

Because she wants at all costs to prevent negligence from harming her efforts to revive professional rugby.

Falling wages

This first postponement is indeed fueling the fears of clubs and institutions to see the schedule quickly turned upside down.

The days available are scarce and the rescheduling of matches promises to be delicate.

And this, especially since the French Rugby Federation (FFR), in the grip of significant budgetary difficulties, intends to organize half a dozen international meetings in the fall to try to generate financial income.

This program includes the Ireland-France match, scheduled for October 31 at the Stade de France.

It was originally scheduled to take place in March, as part of the Six Nations Tournament, but had to be postponed due to the Covid-19 epidemic.

The clubs are both afraid of losing too many international players for these matches and of not being able to field competitive teams to play in the league matches.

In this demanding contact sport, injuries are already numerous.

And it is now a question of knowing if this discipline particularly promotes contagion during meetings.

The calendar can, in any case, quickly turn into a puzzle between Top14 matches and international matches, not to mention the two European competitions, whose final stages of the 2019/2020 season have still not taken place.

The quarter-finals are scheduled in two weeks and six French teams are in contention.

After a truncated 2019/2020 season, which ended without a champion, the clubs hope this time to be able to go to the end and succeed in finding their audience.

Their economic model is essentially based on ticketing, hospitality and partnerships which represent, on average, 60% of their income.

"With the 5,000 spectator gauge which is imposed, they have not been able to launch their subscription campaigns and their ticketing revenues are limited", explains to France 24 Christophe Lepetit, sports economist.

Hence the requests for exemptions from several clubs located in the green zone for this first day of the Top 14, like Brive and Clermont who will be able to respectively accommodate 9,000 and 10,000 spectators, Sunday evening, for their first match of the season.

This context has logically led the clubs to set up smaller budgets for the new season.

"They were encouraged to reduce their lifestyle given that certain resources are uncertain", explains Christophe Lepetit.

And the expenditure items have also been reduced, starting with that of the wage bill.

Almost all clubs have in recent months asked their players to take pay cuts and have been less ambitious when it comes to recruiting.

After several decades of uninterrupted growth, professional rugby is forced to take a break, hoping that its public and its partners will remain faithful to it despite the vagaries of the epidemic.

The summary of the week

France 24 invites you to come back to the news that marked the week

I subscribe

Take international news everywhere with you!

Download the France 24 application

google-play-badge_FR