Reconfinement: professional sport positive, amateur sport looks gray

The pros continue, the amateurs stop.

Even if several team sports leagues (basketball, volleyball, handball) are still wondering, it will be the new rules of the game that the re-containment imposes, at least until December 1.

A relief for Ligue 1 despite questions related to the payment of the Mediapro contract.

"If pro football is forced to stop, it means its economic death sentence," says the president of an L1 club.

"The government listened to us, it understood that football could be important in the life of the French but it must help us, underlines Jean-Pierre Caillot, president of Reims.

I launch an SOS: it is imperative that the clubs benefit at least from a deferral of charges.

"

Contrary to the situation in the spring, individual high level athletes will be able to continue to train, in particular those of Insep and regional centers.

Amateur sport, on the other hand, is taking a break.

Jean Castex explained this Thursday evening during his press conference specifying the modalities of application of the confinement on the whole of the territory announced the day before by Emmanuel Macron.

“Outdoor team sports, football and rugby will be banned,” the Prime Minister said.

Overview.

Amateur football out of the game

Like the L1 and the L2, the National (3rd division), the D1 Women and the D1 Futsal will continue their championships.

The international matches (France A, women and hopes) scheduled for November will take place.

On the other hand, the other national championships (N2, N2, D2 women), regional, departmental and youth, will stop until December 1 like the Coupe de France (two rounds in November).

A logical decision.

In National, for example, five clubs are professional, including Red Star, Le Mans or Orléans.

If players from other clubs do not have the status, they are in fact.

National 2 (4th division), on the other hand, is more “hybrid” with clubs in various situations.

In Bobigny, where 90% of the players work, the club had difficulty training since the curfew.

Coach Himed Hamma believes that the stoppage will "make it possible to avoid games postponed at all costs", but wonders about the rest: "How will the clubs where the players only play football do and how will - do we resume after at least six weeks off?

I have not heard many people talk about it but, since the start of the season, many amateur clubs have been affected by serious injuries which are the consequence of the non-activity of the first confinement.

"

On the Beauvais side, there are also a lot of questions.

If he does not have the status, the promoted in National 2 has a functioning which resembles that of a pro club or assimilated pro.

"80% of the workforce is under contract with a club, we have the same training rhythm as a National team," indicates Guillaume Godin, one of the two presidents with Sylvain Reghem.

We should be able to do like the National, have a normal training pace, with adaptations of course.

Continue and play in camera.

"

Rugby waiting

The Top 14 and the Pro D2 will continue.

But clubs that derive nearly 60% of their income from ticketing, the hospitality that goes with it, and sponsorship for only 20% of TV rights, risk finding themselves in a very complicated situation.

From the beginning of the summer, the NRL had also warned that his sport "would not survive" the extension of the closed doors.

The presidents are asking for “additional aid to the State” if the situation continues beyond 2020. For amateurs, the federal office of the FFR has decided to “suspend all amateur competitions until the beginning of January” and to cancel already “all the final phases of the 2020-2021 season to allow the opportunity to finish all the competitions.

"

For the championships assimilated to semi-pros: National, Federal 1 and Elite women, a "consultation will be organized to determine the conditions for continuing their competitions".

Inevitably, some presidents wonder if continuing is worth it.

“Sportingly, we want to play, slips one of them, whose team is playing in Federal 1. But what is the point of continuing behind closed doors, which will cost us dearly?

"

Towards a suspension of pro basketball

The decision has not yet been made but it does not appear to be in doubt.

This Friday morning, at the end of its general assembly, the Basketball League, which oversees the professional Jeep Elite and Pro B championships, should announce that it is suspending its competitions for at least a month.

The time of confinement and in camera.

Before the resumption of the season, the clubs had indeed recorded the end of the championships in the event of a closed session.

This week, Le Portel and Chalon have also requested the postponement of their respective match due to the impossibility of receiving the public.

Since the start of the season, a third of Jeep Elite games have already been postponed due to cases of Covid detected in the ranks of the teams.

The only gray area seems to concern the next time slots for TV broadcasts on the L'Equipe channel.

The League has reportedly surveyed the clubs to find out if they agreed to play these matches behind closed doors.

Only Monaco and Boulogne-Levallois, less impacted by the absence of the public in their budget, seem to have responded positively.

For the others, playing in this way is excluded.

In addition, the suspension of the Jeep Elite could lead to a reduction or the disappearance of the playoffs at the end of the season.

The European champion and tickets will then be determined based on the regular season ranking.

European competitions should continue.

Newsletter - Most of the news

Every morning, the news seen by Le Parisien

I'm registering

Your email address is collected by Le Parisien to enable you to receive our news and commercial offers.

Learn more

The French basketball federation, which for its part held an exceptional federal office on Thursday evening, decided "pending the ministerial decree on the exact provisions concerning professional sport, intermediate divisions and amateur sport" to postpone the scheduled meetings until See you next Wednesday for its Women's League, Women's League 2 and Men's National 1 championships.

The other competitions (seniors and young people) organized by the Federation are suspended until December 11, "unless the confinement is extended".

The same should be true for the Coupe de France, some of which were scheduled for November.

Finally the France team should welcome, as planned but behind closed doors, two qualifying matches for Euro 2022 at the end of November in Pau.

Volleyball can be left on a weekend

Volleyball had already stopped its amateur championships from National 2 until December 7 for a resumption in January.

Gathered this Thursday morning, the office of the LNV (National Volleyball League) decided to "leave time for consultation and to make the most informed decision possible".

Thus, the matches of League A male and female (6th day) and League B male (4th day) of this weekend are maintained.

The 7th day of the Women's League will also take place on Tuesday.

The steering committee will meet on Monday to decide what to do next.

But the closed door does not seem economically tenable.

“It's a real financial loss,” said Eric Bataller, president of Beauvais, whose team is promoted to Elite (3rd level) this season.

Without ticketing, refreshment and raffle revenue, his club would thus be deprived of some “10,000 euros over the season”, out of a total budget of 392,000 euros.

Handball in expectation

No decision has yet been made.

If the Federation (FFHB) had announced on October 23 (the day after the extension of the curfew) a suspension of the championships for the next two weekends (October 24-25 and October 31-November 1) in N1, N2 N3 men and N1, N2 women, she did not say what to do next.

Among the pros, in the NHL, only two matches of the 7th day of Starligue remain scheduled for the time being: Ivry - Montpellier and Paris - Limoges this Saturday.

As for the female pros, the clubs of LFH clubs are more likely to play, even behind closed doors, because of the proximity of the Euro in December.