French football’s economic model is “dead” after its professional clubs lost 250 million euros last season and the situation will not improve, the person responsible for the league’s financial control warned L’Équipe this Friday.
“The situation continues to be complicated” on June 30 – the end of last season – since the clubs accumulated a net loss of 250 million despite the fact that they made “excellent” sales of 830 million, he said. Jean-Paul Mickeler, head of the National Directorate of Control and Management (DNCG), the economic gendarme of the French league.
In an interview published online on Friday night, Mickeler pointed out that clubs in the first division lost 150 million last season compared to 100 in the second division, and warned that the situation will worsen, because professional clubs received 550 million euros last season from the agreement with US investment fund CVC, but this season the amount they will receive for that concept will drop to 136 million.
Television rights are also down significantly, due to lower interest in the French league among the networks. The head of the DNCG stressed that in recent years the French club “they did not work” in reducing their wage bill.
Among the clubs monitored by UEFA across Europe, the wage bill represents an average of 53% of their income, but in France that figure shoots up to 67%. he added. “When we add to this that domestic (television) rights are not as high as in other countries, and a lower capacity to generate complementary income, we understand that we are facing the end of a model,” he concluded .
Mickeler recalls that this problem is not exclusively French, because there is clubs with losses in England, Italy or Spain, but he insisted that “the absolute priority for our clubs between now and May is to ease their wage bill.”
“The economic model, as before, is dead,” sentence, and gives as an example the success of modesty Brest, who are having unexpected success in the UEFA Champions League: “It’s not all money.”
The French Professional Football League (LFP) decided last week, after a report from DNGC, temporarily relegating historic Lyon to the second division if he doesn’t significantly reduce his salary bill before the end of the season.
Mickeler explained that DNGC understands that the company that owns Lyon, the American Eagle Grouphas a financial recovery plan, but as long as the planned actions are not carried out (sale of the English Crystal Palace, list of the group in New York and transfer of players) the organization’s obligation is to “be skeptical. “
“DNGC only wants one thing: that John Textor (club owner) to complete these important operations and we can annul this relegation at our next hearing,” he stressed.
Source: La Verdad
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