President of French Ligue 1 club, Lyon, Jean-Michel Aulas has urged French authorities to reverse their decision to end the current season early.
PSG were crowned French Champions for the 2019-20 season following the premature termination of the campaign due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The French Football Federation decided to recognise the current league standings as final.
The German Bundesliga’s restart had increased the hopes of other leagues that they can also continue their truncated campaigns, with plans far advanced to resume the seasons in England, Italy and Spain.
Aulas believes football in the country would face an “unprecedented economic and social crisis” should the decision to end the season remain in place.
“The Bundesliga resumed matches on 16 May, Spain will resume matches on 8 June. Italy, Russia and Portugal have resumed collective training and England is working on a resumption after 19 June. How can France not be downgraded very quickly and see its professional football devalued?” He said in a letter to France’s Prime Minister and Sports Minister.
Aulas believes that like the other European countries, the French league can gradually work towards a restart.
“Many developments and hopes are expected on this date, so that France can gradually regain a good dynamic. Could we imagine that 2 June is also a great opportunity to rectify the mistake concerning French football and to allow, with a health protocol used everywhere, a gradual resumption of training and, why not, a resumption of the 2019-20 season over the months of July or August?”
France banned all sporting events, including those behind closed doors, until September effectively ending any possibility of resuming the current league season.
Paris St-Germain were 12 points clear of Marseille at the top of Ligue 1, with 10 games to play, although PSG had one outstanding match as well.
It was Paris club’s third straight league title.
Lyon were in seventh place and miss out on a Europa League place.
With football in the country being frozen since mid-March, there had been hopes that the season could resume in June.
However, Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said the decision to ban sports was to ensure compliance with social distancing directives.
“The 2019-20 season of professional sports, including football, will not be able to resume. It will be possible, on sunny days, to practice an individual sporting activity outdoors, obviously respecting the rules of social distancing,” he said.
“It will not be possible, neither to practice sport in covered places, nor team or contact sports.”
Championnats pro terminés. Classements figés. PSG champion de L1. Critère/ratio de la FFF retenus.
— Domenighetti Joël (@jdomenighetti) April 30, 2020
The Dutch league was earlier cancelled with no champions being announced along with no relegations or promotions.
