The female D1 limits breakage for the moment.

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Daniel Vaquero / SIPA

  • If Ligue 1 is on the brink, the female D1 supported by the FFF limits the breakage despite the Covid-19 epidemic.

  • For the moment, the women's sections of the pros clubs do not suffer the consequences of the state of the latter.

    On the other hand, the small structures, sometimes 100% female, are suffering more and more.

  • The authorities wish to continue structuring projects such as the creation of training centers.

This Friday (6:45 p.m.), the women's D1 offers one of its flagship posters for its recovery.

A duel between the first and the third: PSG - Bordeaux.

Two teams that have been growing in recent years and which in a way symbolize the development of women's football in France over the past decade.

Women now have their place in the French football landscape in 2021.

So if the two women's sections of these clubs should not suffer too much from the consequences of the Covid-19 epidemic, can the health crisis more broadly call into question the rise of women's football in France?

"It's true, we are entitled to ask the question," admits Frédérique Jossinet.

But the director of women's football at the FFF wants to be reassuring right away: “Since 2011, we have been developing slowly but surely and we have structured the clubs well without skipping steps.

A force today in the storm.

Coronavirus is an "almost existential threat" to women's football via @ 20minutesSport https://t.co/AY6VIasaeW

- 20 Minutes Sport (@ 20minutesSport) April 16, 2020

Limited consequences on D1

"Yes the number of licensees to drop like everywhere (especially among the -13 years with a drop of 15-20%) but we are doing much better than others," she says to

20 Minutes.

For the high level, a real locomotive, the situation seems under control.

In any case, it has absolutely nothing to do with that of boys.

Beyond incomparable figures (budget of less than two million euros and average salary of 2,400 euros excluding OL and PSG), the D1 can for example count on its TV rights (1.2 million euros per year paid by Canal +) and its naming (Arkema).

Frédérique Jossinet:

There are some difficulties but no club is in critical condition to date!

We are very, very vigilant.

We try to supervise them well, we have never helped them so much.

"

Despite the catastrophic situation in Ligue 1, the women's sections of professional clubs (9 out of 12 this season) would not be more impacted than that for the moment.

And the FFF will be "very careful that the girls are not the first to drink" in the event of budget cuts in the coming months.

"The main thing is to try to remain coherent, explains the manager of the Girondins' women's team Ulrich Ramé, that is to say that we must at least stabilize the budgets and not make them grease especially when you are a club like Bordeaux in full development for three years with results that follow.

"

Small structures in pain

Finally, the fact of not having yet created its own economic model and of weighing very little on the budgets of professional clubs (between 1 and 4.5% of the overall budget) allows its sections to limit damage today.

For the former judokate, women's football also benefits from another decision taken in the past: “The fact of not having obliged the clubs to have a women's team at one time, helps us well today because those who do have a really care!

"For example, in Bordeaux, Ulrich Ramé ensures that" this crisis will not change the ambitions of the club, we want to stay in the top 3 of the D1 and play in the Champions League.

"

Frédéric Jossinet, director of women's football at the FFF.

- ISABELLE HARSIN / SIPA

It remains to be seen how the smaller structures will fare.

The 100% female clubs that play in D1 and in the lower divisions.

As emphasized by Eve Périsset, the French international of the Girondins, she "is lucky to be in a big club while the situation is surely much more complicated for others".

This is the case for Soyaux-Angoulême or the GPSO 92 Issy.

Last December, the DNCG extended the supervision of the payroll of these two clubs.

Clubs which had included in their budget the exceptional endowment (six million euros in total) that Mediapro had to pay this season.

Eve Périsset, the international defender of the Girondins.

- Daniel Vaquero / SIPA

Despite this context, the Bordeaux defender thinks that this "will not jeopardize the development of women's football in France because it is on the right track with in particular a D1 which is progressing with an increasingly homogeneous championship".

Soon certified training centers?

As with men, one of the medium-term solutions is to rely on training.

The file is progressing little by little.

“The creation of training centers is an objective, a national objective, specifies the former goalkeeper of the Girondins, today, there are above all the Hope centers but we need real training centers in the clubs to have a more elitist recruitment to improve quality.

I hope that will happen soon, maybe as early as next season.

"

The FFF and AFPF (Association of professional women's football), created by Laurent Nicollin the president of Montpellier, are working on the subject.

The objective is to quickly present a file to the Ministry of Sports in order to obtain approval.

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  • Aquitaine

  • Bordeaux

  • Sport

  • PSG

  • Girondins of Bordeaux

  • OL

  • Economic crisis

  • Covid 19

  • Women

  • Coronavirus

  • Women's football

  • D1

  • epidemic