June 4 – France will downsize its top tier Ligue 1 from 20 to 18 clubs in the 2023-24 season. The decision was taken at the LFP’s general assembly and is an immediate consequence of the crisis in French football since the Covid-19 pandemic outbreak.
“It’s a very good decision that shows the unity of French football players,” said LFP president Vincent Labrune. “Above all, it creates the conditions for an ambitious reform plan for the future”.
Labrune cast the deciding vote to enforce the reform in the 2023-24 season, a season later than had been proposed. Nine clubs had voted to introduce the 18-team format in the 2022-23 iteration of Ligue 1 with as many clubs preferring the season that follows. The mechanism to scale down will enter into force in the 2022-23 season: four clubs will be relegated from the French topflight and only two clubs will be promoted from Ligue 2.
The second tier of French football is also discussing a reduction in the number of clubs in competition to 18, but the proposal doesn’t carry much support from within the league.
French football has endured a difficult past 12 months. Last season, Ligue 1 was cancelled because of the global health crisis. The LFP needed a €120 million bank loan to cover the parachute payments to the clubs. This was in addition to the €224 million the league had already borrowed from the French government to help clubs handle the economic consequences of the pandemic.
Last summer, the LFP’s TV rights deal with Mediapro collapsed. In 2018, Mediapro and LFP had struck a record TV rights deal worth more than €800 million a season across Ligue 1 and Ligue 2 with French clubs budgeting those broadcast revenues for the 2020-21 season, but as the new campaign progressed there were worrying signs that Mediapro weren’t fulfilling their contractual obligations. The Spanish media agency, backed by Chinese money, failed to pay their rights fee instalments of €172.3 million and €152.5 million which were due on October 5 and December 5.
Eventually, both parties settled, with Mediapro paying €100 million in compensation for breaching the terms of the contract with an agreement that no further legal action would be taken by the LFP.
As far back as 2003, Frederic Thiriez, then president of the LFP, tried to bring back the number of Ligue 1 clubs to 18, but over the course of two decades little progress was achieved to pass reform until the Covid-19 crisis compelled clubs and the LFP to reconsider options. “This change of format is a first step in a more comprehensive reform of French professional football,” added the LFP’s statement.
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