After Antoine Kombouaré and Laurent Nicollin, it is the turn of another Ligue 1 president to speak. Olivier Letang was at a press conference this Thursday, two days after the re-election of Vincent Labrune at the head of the Professional Football League (LFP) until 2028. After presenting his recruit André Gomes, the Lille president returned to Tuesday’s election.
“Currently, the situation is difficult. There are many clubs that are in difficulty, we have the TV rights which are what they are,” the Lille president first summarized. “And this situation has been very complex to manage.” Despite this fiasco of the TV rights of Ligue 1 which were sold for 500 million euros to DAZN and beIN Sports when the billion euros was hoped for, it is Vincent Labrune who was re-elected with 85.67% of the votes.
“Vincent is and was the best candidate to continue”
If the current situation of French football is not looking good, Olivier Letang does not want to denigrate the current president of the LFP. “I am not here to criticize the work that has been done, since we are not in it, it is difficult to have all the information. But Vincent (Labrune) is and was the best candidate to continue, and not follow, in the same condition”, clearly stated the French leader.
The Linette-Labrune duel has caused a lot of ink to flow in recent days, particularly after the controversy over the vote of the Ligue 2 college, where Cyril Linette, who was voted for by the club presidents in the majority (9 votes against 7, with two abstentions), ultimately did not have the votes of their representatives.
But for Olivier Letang, there is no question of talking about controversy, the most important thing remains the future. “There are a lot of things that have been said about this election, I think that today we especially need calm and to focus on the future, confided Letang. “It is true that we need change, a break, we must learn from what happened, and today, everyone is focused on being able to change things. We need innovation, to change the way we work and the way we also think about football. But let’s think about the game, about football, without getting into politics so that all of French football is lifted up.”
- RMC Sport
