essential
Faced with financial difficulties, the Professional Football League pushes the arrival of the Var in Ligue 2, scheduled for next season. A decision that had already been made for the current financial year.
This is another sign that French football finances are in very poor condition. Video assistance at the refereeing will not appear on the lawns of Ligue 2 early next season, contrary to what was planned. And it is good to save some money that a change of course was ordered.
According to information from the Team, the Professional Football League recently warned the management of the arbitration of this retropedage. This is not the first, because a postponement had already been decided a few weeks before the start of the current season, which was to see the VAR system landing in Ligue 2, while it has been used within the elite of French football since the start of the 2018-2019 season.
-Campaign promise
The introduction of video assistance to the refereeing in the second division was however a campaign promise by Philippe Diallo, re -elected president of the French Football Federation at the end of last year. The sports daily recalls that there was a question that the federation takes care of the cost of deployment at this level. During the current season, she supported part of the operating costs of professional arbitration, up to € 10 million out of the total of € 25 million.
Funding is obviously at the heart of the problem, while French football is going through a serious economic crisis due to the drop in the amounts of audiovisual rights for several years. The information of the postponement of the VAR in L2 also occurs when the LFP and Dazn, the main diffuser of L1, discuss the terms of the premature end of the contract which binds them.
The Ruthenians will therefore have to wait before regularly confronting video assistance with arbitration. Nevertheless, they have already played three games with this tool in recent seasons. It was during their quarter-final of the Coupe de France against Toulouse (1-6), in 2023, as well as during the two play-offs last year, against Paris FC (2-2, 3-2 TAB) and Saint-Etienne (0-2). Note that during these matches, the referee had never used this device.
