the French Football Federation brings together professional clubs to convince them to make their players available

The president of the FFF, the Espoirs coach and the Ligue 1 football clubs are meeting on Friday to discuss the availability of players for the Paris Olympic Games.

The president of the French Football Federation Philippe Diallo will bring together professional football clubs on Friday, December 15, at 10 a.m. to discuss the Paris Olympic Games, Radio France Sports management learned from a source close to the instance. The president of the FFF will be accompanied by the coach of the Espoirs and the Olympic team, Thierry Henry, as well as the national technical director Hubert Fournier and Marc Keller, in charge of the youth selections for the Comex.

This working meeting will aim to present to Ligue 1 clubs – some will be physically present, others by video – the ambitions, the objectives of the Olympic team, as well as the preparation leading up to the tournament which will be held from July 24 to August 10. These dates do not appear on the Fifa calendar, so clubs have no obligation to sell their players. The idea will also be, explains another federal source, to listen to the wishes of the clubs to cooperate as best as possible.

Monaco, “total support” from the FFF

The Federation will be able to count on a first strong support: AS Monaco. The princely club, which currently has four players in the Olympic selection with Maghnes Akliouche, Chrislain Matsima, Soungoutou Magassa and Eliesse Ben Seghir – the latter, injured, could not be called up this fall – says it is ready to let its elements participate in the Games.

The football director of AS Monaco, Thiago Scuro, interviewed by the Sports department of Radio France, goes in this direction. “AS Monaco supports French football, the Federation, we are more than open to discuss with the Federation to cooperate and support their needs for the Olympic Games”, announces the Brazilian, who arrived at the club this summer and who appreciates that this meeting is set up by the FFF to discuss the conditions. And to add: “I know that in Europe, we do not give its fair value to this Olympic tournament, but for me who comes from Brazil, it is a very important objective, I already had a similar experience at RedBull Bragantino, with Claudinho . He was our best player and we let him play in the Olympics in Tokyo in 2021. He had won gold. I know how special this competition is for the players, for the country. So we will be full support for the French Federation in order to achieve this objective.” Recalling that “Monaco is the club which provides the most players to the youth teams, from U16 to Espoirs”.

Avoiding the fiasco of 2021

In 2021, the clubs did not play the game, the coach at the time Sylvain Ripoll had suffered refusals in particular from Stade Rennais, OGC Nice and… AS Monaco. With two defeats in three matches, France was eliminated in the group stages.

As a reminder, the Olympic team is made up of 15 players under the age of 23 plus three players over the age of 23. At the time, André-Pierre Gignac, Florian Thauvin and Téji Savanier joined the French ranks. For these Games in France, Kylian Mbappé and Antoine Griezmann showed their desire to be in the Olympic team.