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Ligue 1: is it really possible to finish the season in December?

2020-03-29T13:27:24.953Z


Whether Christian Gourcuff or Andre Villas-Boas, several Ligue 1 players are pleading for a 2020-2021 season starting in ... next February.


How to end the 2019-2020 season when the coronavirus pandemic continues to rage in France, but also around the world? The question continues to torment the different players in Ligue 1, with each day its new idea. Because a consensus seems to reign: it is out of the question, financially, not to know a conclusion to the current exercise. What Andre Villas-Boas, OM coach who proposed two days ago on RMC Sport, readily acknowledged: “It's difficult for everyone. We begin to think that the most viable would be to finish this season in November-December and continue on a civil calendar from 2021 to arrive until 2022 and the World Cup in Qatar. After that we will have to return to a normal calendar. For the economic health of the clubs, it would be good to finish the championship. "

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Since then, the idea seems to have gained ground and other people, within the French championship, share the opinion expressed by the Portuguese coach. Like his counterpart in Nantes, Christian Gourcuff, or the president of Nice, Jean-Pierre Rivère. But is this solution really possible? From a contractual point of view, obviously, the answer obviously seems negative. Already struggling to know how to settle the question of players at the end of the contract next June, the various clubs would find themselves obliged to extend them until next December. Or let them leave on June 30, as planned, and find themselves potentially destitute when they finish the current fiscal year. In addition, such a decision would require a priori an agreement of all the main major European championships because how to imagine that France ends its season in November-December of this year while the Premier League, La Liga or the Bundesliga celebrate at the same time the end of the first leg of their new season.

The transfer market nightmare

On the transfer market, such an option would lead to a real logistical nightmare with, for Ligue 1, a summer transfer window becoming the equivalent of the winter transfer window today, namely a market for adjustments rather than strong recruitment. This would create a huge gap with our British, German, Spanish and Italian neighbors. Not to mention the European Cups - the Champions League and the Europa League - which would become impossible to harmonize fairly in the event of different seasons. Admittedly, this is already somewhat the case with championships such as the Russian or the Ukrainian, which suffer each year from a lag linked to a long winter break and who sees their representatives go out in March, after have sometimes been brilliant in the previous fall. But without insulting them, they do not weigh the same weight as Ligue 1 or La Liga in the concert of European football.

What to do by the end of the year?

In short, this idea can only be implemented in the event of absolute consensus within the various national leagues to avoid creating championships with two temporalities, and therefore two speeds. Another concern on the calendar plan: how to occupy the players by the end of November-December? There is indeed only a big quarter of the season to complete, which could be done in two months. Obviously, no one knows when the crisis linked to the Covid-19 pandemic will end. But being optimistic and imagining a reasonable outcome in May, whether at the beginning or at the end of the month, what about the next four to five months? Will they be used for holidays and long preparation to compete in the trifle of ten matches from November or October?

Economically, too, what will be the position of the different broadcasters who will have to do without their football gondola for a long time. And then last question: what to do with the postponement of Euro 2021 since it is unthinkable to start a next season in February, as proposed by Gourcuff and Villas-Boas, to finish it in June? Should we follow the example of handball which cuts its club seasons with a big competition in January (Euro or World Championship)? Such a prospect - with its flood of questions - seems very improbable but who knows, this epidemic has already shaken up so many certainties ...

Read also

  • OM: Villas-Boas would like to end the season in November-December

Source: lefigaro

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