Professional sports leagues are rising against the law aimed at reforming sport, too centered on football and “weakening the French sports model”

A week after the deposit of a bill aimed at reforming professional sport, the first concerned reacted strongly. Several professional sports leagues expressed, Wednesday, March 26, their “Total misunderstanding” and their “Deep disagreement” With the law carried by the senators of Isère Michel Savin (Les Républicains) and Val-de-Marne Laurent Lafon (Centrist Union).

“The architecture of the bill indeed carries a risk of weakening leagues and destabilization of the French sports model”write the presidents of the football leagues (Vincent Labrune), Basketball (Philippe Ausseur), Rugby (Yann Roubert), Cycling (Xavier Jan), Handball (Fabrice Boutet), Volleyball (Jean Azéma), as well as David Tebib, the president of the association of professional sports leagues, in a letter sent to the two parliamentarians and consulted The world. MM. Savin and Lafon are also rapporteurs of the Senate information mission on the “Football financialization”.

Deploring that “Never, during (their) works, (Senators have)) requested an exchange with the professional leagues concerned ”sports leaders observe that the bill – tabled on March 19 in the Senate – was shaped “To the only prism of the work carried out by the senatorial mission on football, without any consultation, therefore, with the institutions of other disciplines or analysis of their situation”.

And to rise against the “Lack of consideration for the diversity of professional sports », Stressing that many of them have developed clean models which, although “Less exposed than football”are “For some of the European or even global references in their discipline”. This is the case, for example, of rugby, of which the French championship (Top 14) is considered in ovalia as the best on the planet.

The risk of “accelerating private competition projects”

Toped a week ago in the Senate, the bill takes up part of the 35 recommendations of the report on the “Football financialization” Senators Michel Savin and Laurent Lafon, with the objective that he is debated in Parliament before the summer. If its title is global, this text aims above all to respond to the crisis of professional football in France, judged “Structural” by the president of the French Football Federation (FFF), Philippe Diallo, who launched in parallel with the Estates General in order to “Reform in depth” A sport in particular undermined by serious financial difficulties.

Recalling that professional leagues “Exercise a public service sub -delegation”the bill offers federations the possibility of withdrawing it, in the event of “Backment to the general interest of the discipline”. A provision that is eyeing the situation of the Professional Football League, and thus proposes to strengthen the control of the FFF on the body, due to its difficulties.

“The organization of French professional sport cannot thus be upset by the situation of a single discipline”tance the presidents of the main French professional leagues in their missive. By calling on history: “We note (…) that the serious crises crossed by certain federations do not lead – and it is happy – to a global questioning or to an attack of the federal model ”. In recent years, several leading federations have gone through more or less serious turbulence, without the French sport model, as a whole, being questioned.

In a daily interview Les EchosWednesday, Vincent Labrune, the boss of the LFP (and among the signatories of the letter), erected against the bill, one of the articles of which, according to him, gives “Potentially a right of life or death to the federations on all professional leagues”. Sees him “A real red line, as it seems to me for all the leagues”.

If they greet the provisions of the law “Reinforcing the arsenal of the fight against hacking”called of their wishes “With urgency” by “The entire sports movement as well as the diffusers”and do not oppose those aimed at “Strengthen transparency” Professional leagues, the signatories of the letter claim to be interviewed by the senators. By concluding that“In the state, the bill will inevitably accelerate private competition projects (…) on which our bodies would not have control ”. Like the Super Football League, a secession project of 12 of the largest European clubs which had emerged in the spring of 2021. Which is anything but the initial project of the two senators behind the text.