Will players from US Concarneau, in Finistère, be able to resume the National 1 championship as planned next week?
And if so, under what conditions?
The president of the club could not hide his dismay this Saturday after seeing settling on the grounds of the city a hundred caravans of Travelers.
“That day, Travelers invaded the training center dedicated to US Concarneau.
Dozens of caravans forced the passage and settled on the 4 training grounds of the municipality thus depriving any possibility of training of our National team and of all the teams of the club ”, writes Jacques Piriou this Saturday in a press release posted on social networks.
𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗺𝘂𝗻𝗶𝗾𝘂𝗲́ 𝗼𝗳𝗳𝗶𝗰𝗶𝗲𝗹 - 𝗘𝗻𝘃𝗮𝗵𝗶𝘀𝘀𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗱𝘂 𝗰𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗿𝗲 𝗱'𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗶𝗻𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁.
The press release 👉🏻 https://t.co/4DBkc0rbAC pic.twitter.com/4Qb53yf73G
- US Concarneau (@USConcarneau) July 31, 2021
As for the travelers, we are assured that everything took place in the greatest calm.
"We opened the portal, then the mayor came, he was very understanding," assures Gino, one of the pastors of the community, to Ouest-France.
Marc Bigot, the mayor of Concarneau, rather tells of his powerlessness, claiming to have been faced with a fait accompli.
A catastrophic situation
The city of Concarneau does have parking spaces accessible to travelers, but the municipality only has about ten spaces available.
Also with Ouest-France, Gino ensures that the caravans will leave the training grounds on August 8, to go to Saint-Malo.
Problem: US Concarneau is supposed to receive Red Star players on Friday August 6 for the first day of the championship.
This situation despairs the club president.
“This intrusion puts us in a catastrophic situation,” he laments.
Not having been able to open discussions and in front of the aggressiveness of the people, it is with a lot of bitterness that we had to allow this intrusion to take place and to see with a lot of anger the degradation of the playing areas. "
For his part, the mayor explains that he was unable to find a solution this winter with elected officials to make land located in the town of Melgven, not far away, accessible again, for lack of agreement with the owners.
A new meeting on the subject was to be held on August 30th.
In the meantime, the president of the football club has only one word to sum up the situation: “to cry”.