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The French soccer league faces the end of the season due to the coronavirus pandemic. Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said in a speech to the National Assembly that the 2019/2020 professional sports season cannot be resumed. A Ligue 1 reaction is still pending. According to Philippe, the main events in France with more than 5000 people will be banned until at least September.
If the season is canceled, Paris Saint-Germain with coach Thomas Tuchel could be declared champion ahead of schedule. In Ligue 1, as in almost all other leagues, play has been suspended since mid-March. There are still ten games to play, PSG has yet to play eleven games. The club leads the table with a twelve point lead over Olympique de Marseille. For Tuchel it would be the second championship title in the second year in Paris.
France is seriously affected by the aftermath of Covid-19. Johns Hopinks University has around 166,000 confirmed cases, the fourth most worldwide. People are only allowed to go out an hour a day to shop.
Significant financial loss
Originally, the league still wanted to continue playing since mid-June. There was criticism for this, even from the ranks of soccer. The board of the French players union UNFK, Sylvain Kastendeuch, told SPIEGEL: “I think it is premature and irresponsible.” Athletes did not want to serve as guinea pigs. According to a survey, most professionals advocated abandoning the championship.
A break from the season would now result in considerable financial losses for the clubs. According to the KPMG institute, French soccer associations have already lost around 300 million euros since the start of the crown crisis, particularly due to a lack of money for television. Now more than a hundred million euros would be added, as well as the missing revenue from ticketing and sponsorship.
France’s Ligue 1, along with the Premier League (England), La Liga (Spain), Serie A (Italy) and the Bundesliga, is one of the five most important and commercially largest soccer leagues in Europe. The ball rests everywhere, but at the same time there is an effort to continue the season. In the Bundesliga, this could be the case from mid-May. Politicians decide if this happens.
Soccer operations had already ceased in the Netherlands. Unlike the top five leagues, clubs’ dependence on television money is relatively less there.
More recently, the European soccer association Uefa “urged” the leagues to consider “all possible options” for the resumption of play. He even suggested changing the league format if necessary to make a sports decision. If this is not possible, national associations should decide which clubs should participate in the European Cup in the next season.
However, when this can start it is completely open.
