Ligue 1, which resumes Friday August 5, lives its last season at twenty clubs before the establishment of its new formula at eighteen residents. Four teams will descend at the end of an exercise feared by many.
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It is a pre-season ritual. Each year, as approaching the French championship, specialists and football enthusiasts like to analyze the list of clubs playing in Ligue 1, the highest national level, to cut it into several categories: what will be the contenders for title ? Who can hope to end the year on an accessit synonymous with qualification for a European Cup? Who will have to fight to stay within the elite of hexagonal football?
At the dawn of the 2022-2023 season, which begins Friday August 5 with the Lyon-Ajaccio poster, this last category promises to be exceptionally more garnished than usual. The reason ? The four direct descents at the lower level, in Ligue 2 -and no longer two as so far -, which will punctuate the exercise, Ligue 1 to go from 20 to 18 boarders in 2023-2024.
This sail reduction was acted in June 2021 by the General Assembly of the Professional Football League (LFP) almost unanimously: 97.28 % of the votes, only the Metz club had voted against. The objectives are multiple. By lowering the number of meetings (from 38 to 34 per club), this measure will release dates in a calendar which will, at the same time, weigh down by the new format of the Champions League. Deployed in 2024-2025, it promises at least two additional meetings per participant.
In addition to the desire to put French teams in the best conditions on the continental scene, the objective is also and above all financial. Less numerous, clubs will share a larger share of income from television retransmission rights whose call for tenders for the period 2024-2028 will take place in 2023.
“No one can feel safe “
It is therefore a year of transition that opens this weekend. But like the plain stages of the last Tour de France, it only has a transition. The season presents itself as that of all dangers. Particularly for the recents promoted, often among the most fragile the year of their rise in Ligue 1.
“It turns out that we go up the year when there will be four descents! It’s a bit stupid, but it’s like that, recently laughed Jean-Marc Furlan, the AJ coach Auxerre. But it is better to be in Ligue 1. “AJA, like the other two promoted (Toulouse and Ajaccio), will be on the front line in a fight for maintenance which will involve many teams. “We are going to be one of the favorites for the descent, legitimately”, admits Pascal Gastien, the coach of Clermont, 17 e and first not relegated last season.
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