with Fleury as the last representative, why has it become so difficult to survive in D1 Arkema for amateur clubs?

We are in 2023-2024. The entire D1 Arkema is made up of professional clubs. All ? No ! Because a club of diehard female footballers still resists… The last first division team whose men’s section is not professional, FC Fleury 91 has everything of the isolated Gallic village of Astérix and Obélix, after the sporting and administrative relegation of ASJ Soyaux, a historic D1 Arkema club, which accompanied him in the elite. The new 2023-2024 season which opens on Friday September 15 will thus bring together, in addition to Fleury, 11 clubs whose men’s team is professional, a number which has never been so high since the transition to 12 teams of the D1, in 1992-1993.

FCF Juvisy, VGA Saint-Maur, Toulouse OAC, FC Lyon, ASJ Soyaux-Charente… These clubs, which have been champions of women’s D1 for the last 40 years, have disappeared from the elite of women’s football, i.e. by merger with a professional club, either by sporting or administrative relegation. “There are not 36 reasons to explain this difficulty in surviving in D1, it is mainly the financial reason. The women’s sections are dependent on the men’s part, because that is what brings in money”says David Valcke, president of GPSO Issy 92, a 100% female club which was still playing in D1 in 2021-2022.

“Women’s D1 clubs are not profitable and are in deficit, so if someone can come and fill the deficit, like a men’s section, it’s always easier”confirms Luc Arrondel, economist and author of “Football Money – Women’s Football”.

“In 2019-2020, Lyon’s forecast budget was 7.5 million euros, then we went down to 6.5 for PSG, then 3 million for Montpellier. It was 0.8 million for Fleury, and 0 .7 for Soyaux, explains the economist. And in 2020-2021, the overall budget was 33 million euros distributed between the 12 teams, but with three-quarters for Lyon and Paris, so behind it it goes down very quickly and the inequalities are great.

Amateur and 100% feminine, double punishment

Among the amateur clubs which played in D1 in recent years, and which were demoted sportingly then administratively by the DNCG (National Directorate of Management Control, the financial policeman of football), the GPSO Issy 92 and the ASJ Soyaux-Charente are entirely feminine. “It is not a double punishment to be amateur and feminine, it is a hundredfold punishmentassures David Valcke. We don’t attract enough sponsors. We may say that it is women’s football, that it must be promoted, but in reality, it is not for lack of contacting many companies, there is no one who followed the project 100% feminine. If we had been a men’s club with 1,000 members, we would have more sponsors.”.

These two clubs, which will therefore play in regional divisions next season after the decisions of the DNCG, do not understand their administrative relegation. “Strangely, the three 100% female amateur clubs in D1 and D2 [avec le FF Yzeure] were administratively relegated, it’s surprisingexclaims David Valcke, the president of the Issy-les-Moulineaux club (Hauts-de-Seine). I really had the feeling that the decision was made before the appeal hearing, even if our case was concrete. During the first hearing, the president gave us advice and recommendations which we followed on the appeal.”

In the press release announcing the bankruptcy filing of ASJ Soyaux, its now ex-president, Benoît Letapissier, goes even further, denouncing “the desire of the FFF to eliminate amateur clubs from the landscape of the first division”. “I have the feeling that the big clubs didn’t want us. For them, a PSG-Soyaux is not a seller, they would prefer a PSG-Nice or Marseille, he explains to franceinfo: sport. After Covid, the FFF put forward the idea of ​​expanding D1 to 10 clubs, relegating two teams but without replacing them with those promoted from D2. It would have closed the league a little more, fortunately the players were outraged.” Contacted, the FFF did not respond to requests from franceinfo: sport.

Disappearances by merger

And if the clubs of Issy-les-Moulineaux or Soyaux have not merged with a men’s club, either by choice or by lack of opportunity, other 100% women’s teams have been absorbed in recent years by professional clubs, to survive at the high level, even if it means seeing their name disappear from the shelves. After FC Lyon, attached to Olympique Lyonnais in 2004, Juvisy for example merged with Paris FC in 2017. Also a way for professional clubs to launch their women’s section without starting from the lowest divisions.

“Juvisy was a historic club in the D1, some did not understand and criticized, but without this merger, we would probably be in the same situation as these other amateur clubs today. We needed it to continue to competeassures Marie-Christine Terroni, who was the president of the Juvisiennes, and who remained president of the women’s section of the PFC. Paris FC offers the same means in terms of infrastructure to girls as to boys. And to take an example of the pooling of resources, an amateur club sometimes has to resort to law firms which are very expensive, whereas in a professional club, there is a lawyer..

With these numerous mergers, for only 12 places in D1, several professional clubs are seeing their women’s team evolve in D2, where amateur clubs are also becoming fewer and fewer. In 2023-2024, only five of the 12 clubs involved in the second division do not have a professional men’s team. These are misleading figures since among the latter, Le Mans and Orléans recently had a professional men’s section. The dynamic also continues in the new women’s D3, divided into two groups of 12 clubs: we find Stade Brestois, SM Caen, Estac Troyes, Toulouse FC, Clermont Foot, Grenoble, but also the reserve of ‘Olympique Lyonnais.

In Fleury, women higher than men

In this remodeled landscape, FC Fleury 91 therefore appears as an anomaly among the professional clubs of D1 Arkema. The Essonne team has a men’s team in National 2 (fourth division), and is doing better than surviving in the elite, with a fourth place in 2022-2023, “thanks in particular to the investments of a president-entrepreneur who finances the club”, believes Benoît Letapissier. The transport company Pascal Bovis, named after its manager, provides between 60 and 70% of the club’s budget. A budget of 3.4 million euros, of which 20% is intended for the club’s youth teams, and the rest of which is “fairly distributed between the women’s team and the men’s team”according to Pascal Bovis.

“We have the advantage of having a men’s section which is not professional, therefore which perhaps costs us less, but with which we can pool certain resources, like on the medical part”, continues the president. Fleury is even one of the six who are investing in the opening of a women’s training center at the start of the 2023-2024 season. “For us, training will be essential to bring out good players, while PSG or Lyon who open a center, it is to their credit, but they can buy the players they want”he explains.

The Essonne club will thus begin its seventh consecutive season in the elite with the impression of being “The Last of the Mohicans”. “It is regrettable that a club which has a history with the D1 disappears, but it is the inevitable march towards professionalization. Perhaps tomorrow we will also be victims of this, but we will have made our contribution”affirms Pascal Bovis, while ensuring that his club will have the means to meet the new professionalization requirements requested by the federation.