By Mark Baber
February 4 – France’s highest administrative court – the Conseil d’Etat – has ruled against the French Football League’s legal bid to reduce the number of teams relegated from the top flight from three to two.
The decision upholds the French Football Federation (FFF) decision to keep the number to three on the grounds that the league’s plan could have damaged “the general interests of the discipline.”
The decision also represents another victory for FFF President Noël Le Graët (pictured left) in his long-running feud with French League (LFP) president Frederic Thiriez (pictured right), in a week in which Le Graët also asserted his authority by putting France’s weight behind Gianni Infantino instead of Thiriez’s favoured candidate – Frenchman Jerome Champagne.
The plan to reduce the number of relegation places was dreamed up by Thiriez in an attempt to give greater financial security to the Ligue 1 clubs and unsurprisingly 19 out of 20 top league clubs supported it. However the move was fiercely opposed by Ligue 2 clubs and the professional teams in the National, whom Thiriez is also supposed to represent.
Thiriez had argued that the FFF “would be wrong to declare war on us” by striking down his “reform”. He had also argued that the French Federation would only be able to annul the plan “in two cases: if the LFP has done something illegal or its decision is contrary to the interests of French football.”
“Neither of those conditions has been met. No illegality was committed with regard to Ligue 1 and Ligue 2. As far as the greater interest of football is concerned, I don’t see how that could be threatened,” he declared.
Thiriez’s refusal to respect the legal position could be damaging to his credibility given the importance he attached to this battle, having claimed that “to annul the League’s decision would be a first and an intolerable attack on its autonomy, which was fought for and won 75 years ago. It’s most certainly not on my watch that we’ll put professional football back under the tutelage of the Federation.”
Whilst Thiriez has not had a happy week, the majority of French football supporters will be pleased the Conseil d’Etat has ruled in the greater interest of French football, maintaining a system of relegation and promotion which has been in place since 1933.
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