- With the economic crisis linked to Covid – 19 and the Mediapro fiasco, French football could lose between 310 and 500 millions of euros depending on the sources.
- The situation is such that nearly a third of professional clubs are threatened in their short to medium term survival.
- To save French football, the issue of lower player salaries takes every day a little more in scale.
Unimaginable a few years or even a few months ago, when money flowed freely through the veins of French football, infused by income from TV rights, ticket sales and money from transfer window, the drop in player salaries is no longer a taboo for anyone. It is even now obvious for the vast majority of people in the field, while a meeting is held Thursday between the UNFP – the union of professional players – and certain presidents of Ligue 1 at the origin of this call for help. Everyone is aware of this, therefore, starting with the main stakeholders. Asked before the break on the subject, Paul Baysse, the defender of the Girondins de Bordeaux and member of the UNFP management committee, set an example.
“We know although the clubs are in difficulty with the health crisis and the affair with Mediapro does not help. It is not easy and we are aware of the situation. Last June, we had already been asked to lower our salaries and everyone was in favor of that to help the club. If we have to go through this, we will all be united. I think everyone is ready to make the financial effort. We’re all in the same boat, ”he said, followed since by his teammate Laurent Koscielny. “We all know the context. Everyone will surely have to go through this. We’re all going to have to tighten our belts. “Further east, in Reims, Xavier Chavalerin also thinks collectively:” If we have to do it to save the clubs and the people who work for us on a daily basis such as housekeepers or those who wash our belongings, we will. “.
” Mediapro is the last straw “
These speeches imbued with solidarity are out of place on the part of footballers who are readily accused of navel-gazing and singled out for their disconnection from the real world. It is that in addition to the Covid crisis which emptied the stadiums and the cash desks of the clubs,
the hurricane Mediapro acted as a devastating second blade, to the point that the pure and simple survival of some Ligue 1 and Ligue 2 clubs is today ‘hui in play. On the channel L’Equipe Monday evening, the sports economist Pierre Rondeau estimated suspiciously that a third of French pro clubs could close shop in the short or medium term if nothing was done here there.
“Mediapro is the drop of ‘water but let’s say that the vessel was already very, very full, says Christophe Lepetit, head of economic studies at CDES Limoges. Other clubs in Europe, and among them very large ones like Barça for example, have started to embark on the path of salary reduction. This means that, even without the Mediapro crisis, most probably the clubs would have had to come to the negotiating table with the players to consider such a measure. »
The famous negotiating table. An expression that we are more used to hearing in our news reports when Philippe Martinez storms into the Elysée to save jobs at Continental. But it clearly shows the urgency of the situation. “It risks being a murderous spring if there are no economic arrangements in the club model,” warns LREM deputy Cédric Roussel, co-president of the sports economics group at the National Assembly, who seriously working on setting up a salary cap on a French, even European scale.
Salary, the first adjustment variable
“In the“ expenses ”part of the clubs, the weight of the payroll is very important in most French clubs . So mechanically it is also there that we must go to seek savings, analyzes the deputy of the Alpes-Maritimes. We have heard a lot of good intentions in recent years, the time has come to act. Very well, but how? Because if everyone agrees that we must save the soldier League of Talents, Thursday’s meeting will at best result in what is called a framework agreement. However, this one will have absolutely no binding legal value for the players.
“If there is agreement, engages Christophe Lepetit, it will then be necessary that each one, in the clubs, make an effort and that the leaders negotiate on a case-by-case basis to get through the crisis. »Because with an average salary of 90. euros and an estimated median salary of around 23. euros, the disparities are immense within a cloakroom. Invited to think aloud during a first article on the subject that we published last April, Olivier Delcourt, the Dijon president, explained the mathematical puzzle.
Average gross monthly wages of Ligue 1. 💰 pic.twitter.com/g9gfzaD9hM
– Actu Foot (@ActuFoot_) February 7, 2020
“It should be proportional based on salaries. In Dijon, the lowest salary in the cloakroom must be around 2020 euros, the largest around 94 000. The two cannot be put in the same basket, he said. And then the players earn a lot compared to the rest of society, but they have a corresponding standard of living. “” They have loans, investments, charges, continues Lepetit. They signed contracts, they are employees to whom we owe money, they can say “ok, I agree to make an effort now to pass the cut , but I would like to get my money back later. ” “
Rethinking the economic model as a whole
This is also one of the big questions of the moment: will these wage cuts be part of the time or is it just a question of ‘a one shot just to bail out the ship? The uncertain horizon on the front of the pandemic and vaccination, combined with the probable “very strong discount of future TV rights”, dixit Lepetit, rather encourage us to lean for the first option.
The economist of the CDES, always: “If we think about the longer term, we must rethink the overall regulation of professional football and we must make the sector both more solid and more sustainable. But this regulation cannot be based only on a simple salary cap which would solve nothing at all if it were put in place on its own. We need global regulation at the global or at least European level, regulation of the labor market, the transfer market, financial regulation and wage regulation. This is how we will improve the system and not by making small changes here and there. “
Take it or leave it ?
With, at the end of the day, a profound overhaul of the European football landscape which could look like this: the end of long contracts, the workforce drastically reduced by the end of the stack of players on contracts and, perhaps, a sharp rise in the unemployment curve for players. This is what recently confided to us an agent well installed in Ligue 1 : “For me we are heading for a huge explosion in the number of unemployed in football. Not all of the players see it today but it will be very hot. We will return to a workforce of 19 players with 4 or 5 who will be paid between 5. and 10. 10 euros. »
Is there still exile? “Not even, slice Lepetit. The crisis does not affect France and foreign clubs will no longer offer large contracts with all their hands. Apart from the top players who will remain in a strong position in the salary negotiations, 70%, or even 80%, some players will undergo these negotiations and will not have much choice but to accept. Because they do not really know if they will be able to find another club and under what conditions. Out of this mass of players, few will have real bargaining power and we will certainly have to accept this drop in income. “