French gov’t calls off football, rugby leagues
THE FRENCH football and rugby leagues will not complete their matches this season after the government called them off amid the coronavirus pandemic.
France are set to come out of lockdown on May 11, but the government banned all major sporting events until September.
“The 2019-20 season of professional sport, notably football, won’t be able to resume,” French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said yesterday.
France’s top two football divisions have 10 games remaining in their seasons. Rugby’s top 14 league had reached the semi-final stage. It had initially been forecast that football matches could potentially resume in late June, in empty stadiums and with a strict medical protocol in place.
But the president of French football club Toulouse, who are last in the first division, applauded the government’s decision.
“Football emerges as the winner,” Olivier Sadran told sports daily L’Equipe’s website.“The country is suffering in terms of health and will start to suffer economically. It would be very badly thought of to break away from that. The politicians took the right decision.”
DECISION ON LEAGUE STANDING
The French football league, or LFP, is expected to meet in mid-May to decide on the league standings. Leader Paris Saint-Germain are 12 points ahead of second-place Marseille, who hold the last position for automatic entry into next season’s Champions League.
Third place goes into the qualifying rounds, with Rennes one point ahead of fourth-place Lille.
Toulouse and 19th-place Amiens are in the automatic relegation slots, with Nimes in 18th place – which normally leads to a relegation-promotion play-off with the team third in division two (Ajaccio).
PSG have reached the quarter-finals of the Champions League, while Lyon beat Italian champion Juventus 1-0 at home in the first leg of their last-16 game, but have not played the return in Turin.
It was not immediately clear how the cancellation will affect PSG and Lyon playing in Europe’s elite club soccer competition.
DETAILS TO BE PROVIDED
UEFA has given leagues until May 25 to provide details on how and if they can complete their season. Germany’s Bundesliga wants to restart within weeks and England is trying to complete the Premier League by getting under way again in June.
Javier Tebas, the president of the Spanish league, questioned the decision to scrap the French league’s remaining games.
“I do not understand why there would more danger in playing football behind closed doors, with all precautionary measures, than working on an assembly line,” he said. “If important economic sectors cannot restart, in a safe and controlled manner, they could end up disappearing. That could happen to professional football. In other countries teams are already training, that’s the example to follow.”
If the end of lockdown in France is confirmed, people will be able to exercise freely but individually and with certain restrictions, like social distancing, kept in place. People will not be able to exercise in locations with closed roofs “or take part in collective (team) or contact sports”, Philippe said.
He also said events with more 5,000 people, like “big sporting and cultural events”, will not take place before September.