It's as if French football took great pleasure in going against the grain of its European neighbors. The only country among the major European championships to have definitively ended its season, it was also the first to bring back the public (with a limit of 5,000) to the stadiums during the Cup finals and the preparation matches. This weekend, he will once again “stand out”. The season of L1 indeed resumes while PSG are in the final of the Champions League against Bayern.
Already troubled by the postponements recorded (OM-Saint-Etienne) or threatened (Nîmes-Brest), scrambled by the arrival of the new broadcaster Mediapro which disrupts the habits of viewers, this first day will necessarily be overshadowed by the event that constitutes the presence of a French club in the final of the Champions League on Sunday.
This programming anomaly made some people cringe. “We (Editor's note: French clubs) , we participate, we do not have the right to win. The problem comes from us, not elsewhere, ”Christophe Galtier ironically stressed at a press conference on Thursday. The words of the Lille coach echo those made by Leonardo. "The resumption of Ligue 1 the same weekend as the final of the C1 induces the idea of a European failure of French clubs", lamented the sports director of PSG.
By programming a resumption of Ligue 1 one day of the Champions League final, the LFP (Professional Football League) can indeed suggest that it did not really believe in the French chances in this competition ... An interpretation refuted by the authority . “It's a shortcut to say that, defended Didier Quillot, the general manager of the LFP on RMC. We have scheduled this first day with broadcasters and clubs, because the schedule will be extremely busy. This is why we wanted to start at the end of August. "
The LFP thus considers that it had had to adapt to the decisions of UEFA and "to a modification of European competitions which prevented a start of competition before the weekend of August 22" and to have anticipated "arrangements to avoid competition from programming ”in case of qualification. "We will obviously all be in front of our TV to support a French club in the final", concludes Quillot.
