A vast spider's web, amateur sport unites 107 federations (including 31 Olympic) in France, more than 180,000 associations and 16 million licensees (1.9 million for football, the largest federation). Its secular vitality rests on a foundation mainly built on modest means (63% of associations have a budget of less than 10,000 euros) coming mainly from subsidies granted by the municipalities. And it is traditionally based on volunteering (3.5 million people). Its unique characteristics illustrate its worrying fragility and expose it to the great uncertainties accompanying the Covid-19 pandemic. In an interview with Le Monde, Marie-George Buffet, former Minister of Sports (between 1997 and 2002), summarizes: “The health crisis has complicated the situation of the municipalities, which remain the main lessor of sport, with household spending. However, the finances of the communities are already exhausted… Is sport going to benefit from the same rate of subsidy from the communities? Another fear is that the cost of re-enrolling children in sports clubs is a drag on some families who will have experienced short-time working and impoverishment. "
»READ ALSO - Tennis faced with the fear of emptiness and the threat of a white season
Main source of income which irrigates some 8,000 tennis clubs, via Roland-Garros, the French Federation approved the principle of a support and recovery plan for the entire ecosystem of French tennis and associated disciplines . This plan will mobilize a total amount of 35 million euros. Through the voice of Bernard Laporte, its president, the French Rugby Federation unveiled an assistance plan of the same amount to 1,900 amateur clubs.
To consolidate amateur sport which could lose a number of small local sponsors, Marie-George Buffet, Communist deputy for Seine-Saint-Denis, suggests "the vote of an amendment to the Assembly for the uncapping of the three taxes allocated to sport, through the National Sports Agency: the levies on televised competition broadcasts (the so-called Buffet tax), those on sports bets and those, extrasportives, on La Française des jeux ”. The return to "classic" activities remains imagined between August and September, according to the calendar drawn up by the French National Olympic and Sports Committee, on April 17, after a meeting with the Ministry of Sports.
»READ ALSO - Professional rugby sees the specter of bankruptcy running in
Aware of the issues and the dangers, Christophe Lepetit, director of studies at the Center for Sports Law and Economics in Limoges, sums up the preponderance of amateur sport in the hexagonal system: “All the organizations that manage the practice of mass can benefit from support and business continuity measures. There is a real issue at this level. There are several tens of thousands of euros in loss for these players, even several billion for players in the sector. It is necessary to ensure that people can continue to practice the sport independently, or in a supervised manner in a club. Let us ensure that sport can be practiced everywhere, by all sections of the population and not only by the most solvent sections, which would once again reinforce inequalities. It would be dramatic because sport has a major role to play in tomorrow's society. This involves learning sport at school. "
Read also
- xxx
