It describes the very delicate financial situation of national football clubs, trapped in the “excesses of football business”. A picture further complicated by the end of the Ligue 1 championship due to Covid 19 and the loss of associated TV revenue.
FLP to borrow 224.5 million euros to help clubs
This is why, explains the online investigative media, the Professional Football League (LFP), which collects TV rights and redistributes them to clubs according to their ranking and their reputation, will contract a loan guaranteed by the State ( PGE) of 224.5 million euros.
The idea for the League is to compensate for the loss of television rights not touched due to a pandemic, and to reimburse them in 4 years by puncturing the rights to come.
AS Saint-Etienne (potentially) on the verge of bankruptcy
Where the case gets worse is that – according to Mediapart – four clubs could be on the verge of bankruptcy after sharing the loan. And to quote, in the conditional, Marseille, Bordeaux, Saint-Etienne and Lille whose projections of net balances of treasury in June would be negative, up to 60 million euros for the 4 clubs.
“Amalgams” do we judge among the Greens
As for AS Saint-Etienne, even if we have not yet published an official press release, we firmly deny and speak of “amalgams, deductions made on the basis of anonymized documents”.
“There is, we are told, no worries about cash.” And our interlocutor to specify that the club awaits serenely the off-season and the traditional control of the DNCG, the financial gendarme of French football.