Better, but still a lot of money lost. Ligue 1 clubs lost 273 million euros last season, 582 million euros the previous year, reveals the president of the National Directorate of Management Control (DNCG), Jean-Marc Mickeler in an interview granted Wednesday at L’Equipe.
An interview in which the boss of the financial policeman of French football highlights a sensitive subject: the link between the payroll of elite teams and their performance in European competitions.
“It is useful to remember that for equal performance, payrolls in France are higher than in Italy, Germany and even England,” underlines Jean-Marc Mickeler. We calculated the payroll ratio per point collected in the UEFA competitions of the teams which participated in the European Cups over the last five years. This average ratio is 11.5 million euros per point for 34 clubs in the main championships. It is 17.3 million in France... The cost of French club personnel is too high compared to their performance. »
“Money is not the solution to everything”
“To reach a number of points identical to that collected by the three best clubs in the major leagues (England, Spain, Italy and Germany)
,
we must add those of six French clubs,” he continues. France has only reached one final in the last five years (PSG in the Champions League final in 2020), like the Netherlands and Scotland, whose clubs have payrolls three to four times less important. This clearly shows the need to work on sports performance. Money is not the solution to everything. »
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Ligue 1 still has three opportunities to have a club in the final of a continental competition this season, since Paris, opposed to Barcelona in the quarterfinals of C1, Marseille (against Benfica in the Europa League) and Lille (against Aston Villa in the Ligue Europa Conference) are still in the running. This is the first time since 2004 that France has sent three clubs to the quarter-finals of European Cups.