The Second League kicks off this weekend ahead of the First League next week, as negotiations between the Women’s Professional Football League, clubs and players have currently broken down.
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Saturday, September 14 marks a new page in the history of French football. US Saint-Malo and US Orléans are playing the country’s first professional women’s match. The Seconde Ligue championship (the second division) begins this weekend and its big sister, the Arkema Première Ligue, will begin on Friday, September 20.
A revolution for French women’s football, which until now had amateur status, even if some players, particularly in big clubs like OL or PSG, were already playing professionally. In the pipeline for a long time, but officially launched on July 1st, the Professional Women’s Football League (LFFP) manages the first two professional divisions. At its head, the former president of Olympique Lyonnais Jean-Michel Aulas, very involved in the development of the club’s women’s section, one of the best in the world. “We want to make it the first European league. And for that, we need to structure it now”. Structure, yes, because the work is colossal, when we see the exponential progress of the English or Spanish women’s championships, for example. Last February, the clash between Arsenal and Manchester United brought together 60,000 spectators.
Structuring and professionalizing requires better supervision of the players’ working conditions. A professional contract also means a collective agreement between the League, the clubs and the players. And that’s where things get stuck. Last March, Jean-Michel Aulas hoped for very rapid progress and announcements “probably May 1st” so that “things are completely ratified” before the launch of the LFFP. Then the objective was postponed to the launch itself, on July 1: missed again. “For now, it’s the status quodeplores Fabien Safanjon, vice-president of the UNFP, the professional footballers’ union. The negotiations were stopped and have not resumed because there are strong points of disagreement on things that seemed obvious to us in order to get as close as possible to the professional football charter. [la convention qui régit les contrats chez les joueurs professionnels].”
“It seems obvious to us that for female players, who do the same job, there must be a form of fairness with men.”
Fabien Safanjon, vice-president of the UNFP, responsible for women’s footballto franceinfo
It is not the salaries as such that are blocking the issue, all parties have in fact agreed on a minimum remuneration. slightly higher than the minimum wage. But the clubs are, on the other hand, inflexible on other demands from the players, in particular the establishment of a pension system, which would allow them to receive a certain sum of money when they retire, and the inclusion in the agreement of remuneration relating to the image rights of female players, two provisions existing for men.
With this collective agreement, what will mainly change is the beginning of standardization, even if there will always be disparities, according to Daniel Marques, freelance journalist, editor for the site footoféminin.fr: “Clubs with more resources will be able to do even more. But the principle is above all to provide a clear framework, and the same for everyone. The LFFP came to provide the foundations for the clubs, the collective agreement will provide them to the players. Before, the championship was managed by the French Football Federation, there were already rules, but it was more generous. Now, the players will be better supervised, better protected, particularly with regard to their salaries, but also in the event of maternity, and, if the clubs end up giving in on the savings, to prepare for their retirement.”
“Professionalization is a whole. The LFFP asks clubs for infrastructure bases, the collective agreement establishes contractual bases.”
Daniel Marques, women’s football specialistto franceinfo
For Daniel Marques, if clubs are so reluctant to get involved, it is above all a financial question: “What is disturbing is that a minimum salary that we agree to pay, even in the case of maternity, a system of benefits and image rights, is a cost. Some women’s teams already operate with very tight budgets, and some clubs do not want to allocate these resources, while others simply do not have the money. But the advantage of this regulation is that in the long term, it will only leave in these professional leagues the clubs that have this financial capacity.”
The championships – at least the second division – will therefore start in France without an agreement, and the situation could get bogged down. In Spain, in 2019, the players went so far as to strike under similar conditions, with negotiations stalling on the issue of salaries. They won their case. An example that is not currently relevant in France, according to Fabien Safanjon: “It’s not on the agenda, even if there is a trend emerging which consists of players saying, if they don’t want to understand, that we’re not asking for the moon, but just to be respected and considered. For the moment, at the UNFP, we are moderating them because it wouldn’t be profitable for either party, but if we have to go through with it, we’ll go through with it.”
As things stand and despite this blockage, France is therefore the fifth country after England, Spain, the United States and Italy to have professional women’s football championships.