By David Owen
October 19 – The French Professional Football League (LFP) intends to set up a commercial support department to spread best practice among the country’s leading clubs. Mathieu Ficot, the LFP’s chief commercial officer, made the disclosure in an interview with INSIDEworldfootball.
Ficot said: “I am trying to create a specific dedicated service, a department which would provide commercial support to the clubs. We sell the centralised media rights, but as far as sponsorship is concerned, as far as ticketing is concerned, as far as hospitality, merchandising are concerned, the clubs retain their own inventory.”
He went on: “I think we can try to learn from the US in terms of sharing best practices, trying to help them have different perspectives, trying to create interest with new fans.”
The comments came in the context of a conversation about the difficult competitive situation faced by French clubs as a consequence of high taxes and social charges, and the extent to which the country’s hosting of the Euro 2016 football tournament might help.
“You have to live with globalisation and there is no harmonisation whatsoever even in Europe as far as tax is concerned,” Ficot argued.
While acknowledging that the widely-publicised 75% tax rate on high incomes is “supposed to end in 2015”, he alluded to a 2013 table sourced to Deloitte comparing the cost to employers in France, Britain, Italy, Germany and Spain of paying a player a net salary of €1.8 million. This arrived at a figure of a little under €5.37 million in France and between €3.3 million and €3.7 million everywhere else.
“If Paris Saint-Germain, with the cost of its squad at the moment, was playing in Germany, it would save between €60 and 80 million of social taxes,” Ficot claimed. “I mean it’s massive.”
Asked if he expected Euro 2016 to have as positive an effect on French clubs as the 2006 World Cup on their German counterparts, Ficot was non-committal. “I don’t know to what extent I foresee [a similar effect] or not,” he said. “I really hope for the best. Many clubs have invested heavily in new infrastructure…So they will have new infrastructure definitely with high standards to enhance the fans’ experience. So, yes, very positive.”
However, “In France it is very difficult for clubs to get loans from banks…French banks are not ready to take risks in football.”
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