Open letter from the French Sports Movement to the President of the Republic

On Monday 26 October 2020, the French sports movement sent an open letter to the President of the Republic, entitled "SOS: SPORT IN DISTRESS", co-signed by 95 sports federations. The full text is below.

OPEN LETTER FROM THE FRENCH SPORTS MOVEMENT TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC...

Monsieur le Président de la République,

Voluntary-sector players, volunteers, sports coaches, and club and federation leaders are not among those who seek the limelight. They prefer to work to ensure that respect for rules, for others and for oneself is practised every day. It is therefore with a heavy but weary heart that, as representatives of the French sports movement in all its diversity, we address you openly today, because we are at a loss.

We are at a loss to see that the federated sports sector, with its unique social and economic model and its values essential to the Republican social fabric, clearly does not figure among the priorities for action of our country in times of crisis. Yet it guarantees access to sport for the greatest number of people while allowing talents from all backgrounds to be spotted and to flourish.

For several months we have been doing everything we can to adapt to the uncertainties and to the many divergent, sometimes contradictory applications of health doctrine on the ground. We have drawn up the most demanding health protocols, validated by the Ministries of both Sport and Health, as well as by the High Council for Public Health and the inter-ministerial crisis unit. We have constantly improved them to take account of the growing circulation of the virus. We have implemented them scrupulously, with the strength of commitment that characterises our 3 million volunteers and the professionals who work with them, foremost among them our "Covid managers" present in every federation and in most clubs.

Despite these efforts, our scheduled or rescheduled competitions and events are being cancelled, often at the last minute and because of excessive and unjustified application of health measures by local authorities. Our activities are at a standstill in many areas, including green zones not subject to the curfew. The very uneven decisions of the Prefectures and regional health agencies, in similar situations, are slowly killing sport. We already report more than a quarter fewer members, to the point that many clubs now wonder whether they will get through the year, since more than 80% of them, run only by volunteers, the pillars of amateur sport, are still excluded from the aid schemes provided under the support plan run by the Ministry of the Economy.

We are also at a loss because, need we remind anyone, playing sport is good for your health and helps you resist the epidemic better! The rise in inactivity of course hits already vulnerable populations even harder; we can only fear, powerless, its even more disastrous consequences for tomorrow's public health. You will therefore understand our incomprehension at suffering a stigmatisation as violent as it is unfounded, since it is not backed by objective evidence. How are we to understand and explain why other activities remain allowed, including in the areas worst hit by the epidemic, but sport is not in areas that are better protected?

We fully appreciate the scale of the crisis our country is going through and do not wish to set sectors of activity against each other. Yet we note, with bitterness, that the specific features of our sector have not been taken into account by a suitable support scheme. Budget-wise, we deplore that the few euros promised here are taken back there, in sleight-of-hand tricks that are unworthy and humiliating.
We send you this SOS today, Monsieur le Président, so that we may regain the consideration we can hope for and the support we believe we deserve.

As preparations are under way for the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games, it seems to us that the priority must be to preserve our ability to look to the future together. As you have said, our society will have to live with the virus. We must therefore live with it until it has been defeated, but we do not want to disappear before it does.

Counting on your understanding and support, we ask you to accept, Monsieur le Président de la République, the expression of our highest consideration.

The French Sports Movement