Following the Ligue de Football Professionnel (LFP) and French government’s decision to cancel the Ligue 1 season prematurely due to the coronavirus, the Bundesliga has returned and the other top leagues in Europe are planning to resume play.
As each country opens up training facilities and eventual play out the rest of their domestic season, Ligue 1 fans are left wondering if the wrong decision was made.
In an interview with L’Equipe, Dijon FCO defender Mickael Alphonse was asked if the season was canceled prematurely and he backed the league’s decision.
“It’s very easy to say that now, to rewrite history. The weather is fine, there is confinement, there are fewer cases. It’s very easy to say to yourself, ‘We could have waited.’ But at the time, I really don’t think there were few Ligue 1 players who wanted to take over. Today, the question no longer arises. But you still have to put yourself in the context of the decision. There were no masks, few tests. For me, it is a fair and honest decision.”
I put myself in the context of the decision-makers and it still doesn’t make any sense why they canceled the season when they did. They could have waited to see how other leagues handled their situation and tried to emulate them. That would have bought them some time to see if the country started to go down the road to recovery enough to play out the Ligue 1 season. Maybe the league would still have been canceled but at least they would have used all of the available time to make a decision.
For Paris Saint-Germain, they may be Ligue 1 champions, but not playing any games will put them at a disadvantage in the UEFA Champions League, which is expected to start back up again in August. Their last match was on March 11, so that’s a five-month layoff without any competitive matches.
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