This archive report was first published on 10 May 2020.
Published on May 10, 2020, Lyon, a seven-time French football champion, has expressed its disappointment with the French football league's (LFP) decision to end the Ligue 1 season prematurely.
The LFP had ended the season with 10 rounds of matches unplayed due to the coronavirus pandemic, crowning Paris Saint-Germain champions and relegating the bottom two teams, Amiens and Toulouse.
Lyon, who had reached the Champions League last 16, were left seventh in the standings and outside the European qualification places.
‘Today, it is not only about OL, but quite simply about the future of French football,’ Lyon said in a statement.
The club claimed that French football could suffer short-term losses of 900 million euros ($987 million) and questioned how it could compete with other European leagues that had chosen to restart their seasons.
‘How can we fight with our foreign competitors who, in the vast majority, chose to wait cautiously to restart their championship?’ Lyon asked.
The German Bundesliga is set to resume next weekend, while the Dutch season has been abandoned.
According to UEFA, Ligue 1's revenue in 2018 was barely half the Bundesliga's 3.2 billion euros.
