Denys Baudin: Christophe Cailliet, do international competitions bring licensees back to us, to Yonne?
Not particularly. But when they are successful, yes. This was the case for the 2018 World Cup. We had the pleasure of beating our licensee record. This year, there are 12,200 people playing football in the Yonne region. We know that if the Euro is successful and if behind it, our Olympic and Paralympic teams shine during the Olympic Games, we will have even more young people coming to our football clubs.
But what is the profile of these licensees?
It is especially children who want to effectively reproduce the exploits of their hero that they see on TV. It’s always like that. They too want to shake the nets in Yonne.
Is there anything new from the next school year for young people?
Yes, we managed to obtain an amateur football center of excellence from the Burgundy league.
This will allow young people from middle and high schools to be able to play football in sports sections, but particularly successful sports sections in Auxerre. As far as the existing one is concerned, the boys’ girls refereeing center in Auxerre is the best in France. Federal referees who are gradually arriving in regional championships and national championships. And we can rejoice in that. There is also futsal in collaboration with the Louis Davier high school in Joigny.
Does that mean that, despite the violence in football, refereeing is still attractive?
We still have violence unfortunately, on the margins. We are trying to fight against this. We do it in full collaboration with our clubs. And when we discuss it, particularly with the principal of the Fourier high school, he always tells us that the boys and girls who go into refereeing are the future polytechnicians. They also do particularly well at school because they are very structured, they know the rules, they are very straight.
So there is the French team at the Euro, but there is also the AJA which is returning to Ligue1 this season?
Superb performance of our flagship team. There will be a lot of enthusiasm, enthusiasm for this rise to Ligue 1. We hope that they will also succeed in performing at this level. To be able to maintain our position will be the very clearly stated ambition. But still, what a pleasure for us to be able to welcome PSG, Olympique de Marseille, Lyon, our friends from Saint-Etienne. It’s going to be awesome.
