championships and Coupe de France, what solutions for the FFF?

Prime Minister Jean Castex announced this morning that amateur football could not resume before January 20. A new puzzle for the French Football Federation (FFF), with a view to concluding the season.

It is a new blow to the head received by amateur football this Thursday morning. Present at a press conference to announce the containment relief measures, Prime Minister Jean Castex indicated that there would be “no resumption of team sports or outdoor contact for seniors before January 20.” An announcement that necessarily poses a new question: how the championships ranging from District to National 2, stopped since the end of October due to the health crisis, will be able to come to an end? Another question: what about the Coupe de France? Recently, the French Football Federation (FFF) had fixed the course of the Old Lady, by shifting the 6th and 7th rounds of the competition to the beginning of January. This very period where, traditionally, the 32nd and then the 16th finals are played. Unable to train before January 20 therefore, amateur clubs, which will also require a preparation phase from this deadline, are once again facing a headache.

The play-offs, the “right solution”?

A puzzle that the FFF will have to manage. But what solutions are presented to the instance? That of the white season will obviously gain ground. We’ll erase everything and start again ? Another potentiality evoked in recent weeks: that of play-offs and play-downs. The idea would then be to shorten the championships, by playing only the first leg matches before transferring the teams from each division into play-offs to compete for the climb and play-downs to avoid relegation.

“The play-offs are a good solution only if we cannot go to the end of the season”, indicated the president of the Hauts-de-France League Bruno Brongniart to the Picard Courier, before adding and specifying: “Most of the feedback I have tell me that it is a good solution if we cannot finish normally. Anyway, it is not specific to Hauts- de-France. Moreover, I would like to say that the idea of ​​the play-offs, which I approve, does not come from us but from the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes League. And if this system were to be put in place , that would be done with the FFF. ” The fate of the 2020/2021 season therefore remains in the hands of Noël Le Graët and the Federation. By January 20, the president and his entourage will indeed have to review the appropriate solutions to conclude the season in one way or another.

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