Clubs are counting the cost of Covid-19
FRENCH COLUMN
In the end, the rapidly shifting Covid-19 situation in France made the decision to suspend the Top 14 and ProD2 inevitable. The Ligue Nationale de Rugby (LNR), organisers of the country's two professional competitions, announced after emergency telephone conference on Friday afternoon that the Top 14 and ProD2 competitions were suspended until further notice.
“Health is the top priority. We are therefore suspending our Top 14 and ProD2 championships in the exceptional context that our country is going through. The key is to stand together in this period of national solidarity,” LNR president Paul Goze said in a statement announcing the decision.
Players may be placed on ‘temporary unemployment' and qualify for government benefits.
Initial reports said that France's two professional leagues would be called off until April 30 – but even that was longer than had been expected.
In the days leading up to the decision, a suspension of three rounds of the Top 14 – to April 15 – had been touted in the French rugby media. It has been estimated that suspending the Top 14 for those three weeks alone could cost the league as much as €100million in lost revenue.
The suspension of the leagues came after French President Emmanuel Macron announced in a televised address on Thursday evening stringent measures to curb the spread of Covid-19 in France, where the number of confirmed cases stood at 3,661 on Saturday, with 79 deaths.
From Friday evening, schools, creches and universities across France will close for an indefinite period. Other measures included the cancellation of non-essential operations, asking businesses to allow staff to work from home where possible, and help for employees obliged to take time off to look after their athome children, while a ban on gatherings of more than 100 people was introduced on Friday.
Hours before the LNR meeting, the FFR announced all amateur competitions, training and mini and junior rugby would be suspended until further notice.
Although an initial agreement between the LNR and the clubs had been to maintain the Top 14 fixture list by playing games behind closed doors, the mood had been swinging towards a suspension of the league.
The Top 14 has been on a threeweek international break, and was due to return on March 21, while the ProD2 was set to resume after its late winter break on March 26.
The move towards a suspension had been led by Toulouse president Didier Lacroix and Clermont's Eric de Cromieres. But no agreement to press an expensive pause on the league was reached at a meeting last Tuesday.
In that meeting, Goze had reportedly warned of the financial implications of postponing matches.
He lambasted clubs for deciding to spend all the TV money, rather than keep some in an LNR pot for a rainy day such as this, and warned that French broadcaster Canal Plus could demand some of its current €97million- a-season deal money back.
It was enough to make even postponement- favouring clubs think again. So, they planned to convene an extraordinary general meeting in Toulouse on Monday. But the new government restrictions meant that meeting was brought forward to Friday afternoon – by which time, given other sports' Covid-19 responses in France and elsewhere, it was little more than a rubber-stamping exercise.
According to straw-poll by Midi Olympique published on Friday morning, eight clubs backed postponements; four preferred to play behind closed doors; one wanted affected games cancelled; and one declined to respond.
“It's estimated that suspending the Top 14 for three weeks could cost €100m in lost revenue”
Lacroix, whose Toulouse had been banking on a revenue boost from the ChampionsCup quarter-final against Ulster in early April, said that playing games behind closed doors would be ‘suicidal'. “A match behind closed doors means a loss of €800,000 euros,” he said.
Castres Olympique's influential president Pier re-Yves Revol, however, was on record describing the closeddoors conting ency as the ‘least bad and most responsible option'.
Stade Francais' general manager Thomas Lombard told AFP: “We may have to wait for the next three g ames, but what about after that? You can have postponement after postponement… and then it gets complicated.” And Lyon president Yann Roubert –when the April 15 resumption date was still favoured – said: “If we postpone, we're not sure it will get better after April 15. Then we could face the double penalty of postponements and closed-door sessions. And if more drastic (government) measures are in force, there will still be postponements when there are no more possible dates (to reschedule). We have to choose between the plague and cholera.” It's clear the shifting mood, with sports across the globe – from golf and tennis to F1 and football – postponing or cancelling events, meant those presidents who preferred to continue behind closed doors were in the minority. At the back of everyone's mind, too, is Europe. Two Champions Cup and three Challenge Cup quarter-finals involving five French clubs, are currently scheduled for the first weekend in April, which is in the postponement period.
Four of those matches are in France.
EPCR has issued a statement saying they support “preventative measures which have been introduced to date in the interest of overall public health and will respect further directives by governments and local authorities”.
A decision on those games, surely, would not take long to reach. What remains to be seen is the financial impact on clubs across the leagues.
