Are professional sports (excluding football) doomed to end their season?

Indoor sports do not know if they will be able to continue their season behind closed doors.

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• After the presidential announcements on the new confinement on Wednesday evening, Roxana Maracineanu said that professional sports can continue. 

• Good news for the Leagues and the clubs, which however await to know if they will be supported financially by the government. 

• For them, continuing the season behind closed doors without help seems untenable. 

Just because they saw it coming doesn't mean the new shovel is less painful.

With the announcements of Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday evening - which surprised no one - the leaders of the Leagues and professional clubs have the unpleasant impression of being hit when they are already on the ground.

The Covid-19 crisis is worsening, and with it the financial situation of sports which cannot rely on TV rights to survive.

All except football, in fact.

Late Wednesday evening, the Minister Delegate for Sports Roxana Maracineanu indicated that despite the confinement decreed from Friday and until December 1 (at least), "high-level athletes and professional athletes will be able to continue to train and to compete ”.

Good news.

But will they have the means?

This is what is at stake for the next few days.

Economically not viable

Without any ticketing revenue and the impossibility of honoring the contracts entered into by their partners, basketball, handball, volleyball and more generally all indoor sports clubs see their future darken.

"Allowing us to play behind closed doors is like saying to a company" you will spend the money to produce, but you do not have the right to sell ", summarizes Gaël Pelletier, president of HBC Nantes.

It is obvious that this is not economically viable.

"

“The closed door is not sustainable.

We lose on a symbolic level the link with our fans, and above all we lose dry income, adds Mathias Priez, administrative, legal and financial director of Paris Basket.

We no longer have income from ticket offices, refreshments and shops.

We only had the partners left, but here too we lost everything we could promote, in particular the billboards in the room.

So we have almost nothing left.

"

Speaking last night at the National Assembly to present the main lines of the budget of the Ministry of Sports for 2021, the minister @RoxaMaracineanu affirmed that the State would be at the side of the sports movement in the new stage of the health crisis that we are going through pic .twitter.com / xDjyQvudNh

- Ministry of Sports 🤸‍♀️🏠 (@Sports_gouv) October 29, 2020

For everyone, the same question now.

Is it better to continue the championship or stop the costs, at least temporarily?

“Clubs will be penalized whatever happens, observes Yann Lavalley, general manager of Tourcoing Volley, leader of Ligue A. If we freeze the championship for a month or two, how are we going to finish it, and is we will have better visibility for the reception of the public in two months?

If I am guaranteed that in January we can leave with at least 1,000 spectators, I can keep my back.

But I remain convinced that the government will not take the risk of re-authorizing gatherings before the end of this season.

"

A closed door is expensive

The video meetings have been linked since Thursday morning to discuss it.

"Playing a whole season behind closed doors does not make sense, neither socially nor economically," said Thierry Parienty, boss of the Bordeaux Boxers.

For this Magnus League ice hockey club, each match without spectators represents on average between 25,000 and 40,000 euros in revenue which soars.

As for Montpellier Handball, the optimistic estimate is 80,000 euros to be reimbursed (to subscribers, partners, communities, etc.) behind closed doors.

“If you consider the sporting aspect, you have to play, considers its president Julien Deljarry.

People are confined, they bother and want to see games.

We have to put on a show and even more communicate our visibility.

But we will not be able to do it without being helped, and today we have nothing concrete.

"

The most urgent thing is to decide for the day of this weekend, already.

Volleyball clubs have decided to play pending a decisive meeting on Monday.

The Basketball League (LNB) had anticipated and announced on Wednesday the cancellation of all matches this weekend.

"We had noted during the last GA of the season, in May, that there would be no game behind closed doors of the season," explains the LNB.

We reacted quickly to prevent clubs from leaving for nothing, like last March when some had to turn around halfway.

It had been violent.

Here at least we have taken the lead and there will be fewer problems.

"

If nothing is official for the Lidl Starligue de hand, no match should be played either, between the cases of Covid-19 and the wait for a concerted decision for the rest of the season.

Handball and all other sports are now waiting for the government, and in particular Roxana Maracineanu, to provide details following President Macron's statements.

Will the state help, and if so how and to what extent?

An envelope of 107 million euros has indeed been released after weeks of negotiations between the Ministry of Sports and Bercy to help the clubs, but this windfall is subject to the authorization of the European Union ... which has no air in a hurry to seize the file.

Above all, the sum seems derisory compared to what it would take to compensate for the losses of almost all French sport.

"We are waiting to know if we will be able to benefit from compensation measures on ticket office losses and a postponement of employer contributions from September to December," explains Mathias Priez, of Paris Basket.

But the burning issue is that of partial unemployment.

This is clearly the main stake for all the actors that we were able to question.

And a great cause for concern, which was not dispelled Thursday evening.

"The clubs will benefit from specific support", simply declared Jean Castex during a press conference where Roxana Maracineanu was not allowed to speak.

"It doesn't fall on us all at once!"

"

“If we read between the lines, we can think that there will be no partial unemployment, estimates Yann Lavalley.

If the government says we can play and the Leagues decide for themselves that they won't, we can assume that they will have to take responsibility.

"Mathias Priez does not see it from this angle:" From the moment when we cannot generate income, we are in the same situation as a merchant who has to close his shop.

I do not imagine that we do not have the right to this device.

"

“I don't know, and that's what is problematic,” plague Gaël Pelletier for his part.

The boss of HBC Nantes regrets that a plan is not already planned for professional sport.

“It's a complex subject, with large sums of money to unlock, but at some point you have to make decisions.

It does not fall on us there, all at once!

Last March, yes, but that is no longer the case.

This second wave was expected and we knew that it would cause great difficulties.

This time, we cannot say that professional sport is disconnected from reality.

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• Confinement

• Sport

• Handball

• Basketball

• Volleyball