The progress of Paris Saint-Germain to the final of the Champions League should be a cause so that French football celebrates, but their achievement barely disguises the fact that the game in the country is in crisis while the Ligue 1 season ended this weekend. PSG had already finished a fourth consecutive national title long before the end of the French campaign, and the Luis Enrique team can also add the French Cup next Saturday. This will be followed by the confrontation of the Champions League against Inter Milan on May 31, because PSG finally aims to get their hands on the trophy they covet the most. France has won the World Cup twice and reached two other finals in the last seven editions.
But French clubs have gotten into the habit of underperformance in continental competitions, which means that PSG can just become the country’s second club to win the largest European football, after Marseille in 1993.
In other words, France has nevertheless won as many European cuts as Scotland and Romania, or a less Nottingham forest.
It is therefore not surprising that the French football community seems united to put itself behind PSG in the final, despite the impossibility of the rival sides to challenge the club supported by Qatar at the national level.
“We are fortunate to have a French team in the final,” said beautiful coach Franck Haise.
“I am not a supporter of Paris. My club is nice, but I can’t wait to see Paris win the final. I am French, as I was when Marseille won in 1993.”
Marseille, Monaco and Lyon have at least all reached European semi-finals in recent years and should aspire to compete regularly at this level.
Lyon debts
However, the fate currently in Lyon, seven times French champions, is worrying.
Eagle Football, the company controlled by the American businessman John Textor and which has Lyon, recently declared debts of 540 million euros ($ 603 million).
This has raised doubts about the ability of Lyon to remain a continuous concern, all the more after their inability to qualify for the Champions League for next season.
Lyon was spent, warned that they would be demoted to Ligue 2 if drastic measures had not been taken to reduce their debts.
The sports daily L’Equipe also pointed out that the club should accept UEFA sanctions in order to be authorized in Europe next season.
At least Marseille and Monaco know that they will be in the Champions League with PSG.
Television agreement
Any French club unable to take a share of the wealth offered in Europe is faced with a difficult future due to the uncertainty surrounding the Ligue 1 domestic television agreement.
A last minute agreement for this season with the Dazn streaming platform promised only Ligue 1 clubs only 400 million euros per year to show the majority of matches per weekend.
Adding other offers, notably with international broadcasters, the French League (LFP) was still well below its declared ambition to collect a billion euros ($ 1.115 billion) per year on television.
Consequently, the current television agreement of Ligue 1 is down on its previous contract, leaving France dragging even more behind the largest European leagues – the next Indoor Rights agreement of the Premier League for the next four years is estimated at 2.02 billion euros per season.
In addition, the agreement with Dazn should now be broken early, the French League which is rather looking to create its own channel to broadcast matches.
And therefore in the short and medium term, clubs can not have any guarantee as to the income they will receive from television.
This can only make life more difficult for the most part, and the huge gulf between PSG and the rest can only grow.
“PSG has invested a lot of money and has years ahead of us in many ways, but our ambition is still to be able to compete with them,” insisted Marseille Roberto coach from Zerbi.
However, Parisians are about to go to the Club World Cup in the United States, where the proposed price will see the winners receive up to $ 125 million.
Perhaps all the rivals of PSG can hope that the Luis Enrique team returns from this exhausted tournament that the playing field opens a little next season.
(This story has not been published by NDTV staff and is generated automatically from a unionized flow.)
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