On D-2 of the scheduled start in Nice on Saturday, the Tour de France is unable to respond precisely to unprecedented legal problems in a context of a pandemic, and for example to this very concrete case: the Spaniard Omar Fraile (Astana) may- he is definitely crowned winner of the event if he is a yellow jersey at the end of the 6e stage at Mont Aigoual (Gard), on September 2, and that the race was canceled the next day by the authorities, for health reasons? Or can competing teams demand that there be no winner? Conversely, if the organizers decide on an edition without a winner, can the runner then wearing the yellow jersey claim the title? “This is a very interesting case, admits lawyer Jean-Jacques Bertrand, former arbitrator at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (TAS), a reference in sports law for over forty years. Any question is a subject of potential litigation. All the more so in professional sport, where significant financial interests make it possible to invoke prejudices. ”
First surprise: the scenario of an interrupted race is not envisaged either by the regulations of the International Cycling Union (UCI) or in those of Amaury sport organization (ASO). In its latest version, dating from this year since referring to the coronavirus epidemic in the preamble, the text of ASO indicates (article 24): “The general individual classification by time is established by adding the times achieved by each rider in the 21 stages, taking into account penalties and time bonuses.” For the allocation of the green jersey or the polka dot jersey, the text is even more explicit: “To appear in the general individual classification, the winners […] must complete the Tour de France. ” Joëlle Monlouis, lawyer at the Paris bar and specialist in sports law, summarizes the current situation: “It is complicated to find light in the maze of questions and, as it is, we can only formulate hypotheses.. But, for now, the regulations rule out the possibility that the Tour de France will not come to an end. ”
Tenth step
“We have to settle these points with ASO”, said the International Association of Professional Sports Groups (AIGCP), which held a first meeting Tuesday remotely and will meet Thursday in Nice. The grouping of teams is negotiating with the organizers and the international federation the exclusion procedure in the event of positive tests for Covid-19. ASO wanted to dismiss a team of which two runners or management members would be affected by the virus, but this provision should be relaxed.
“We do not want to consider the hypothesis of a Tour which does not last three weeks, we have not prepared our riders for that”, comments a French team manager. And yet… A leading foreign formation clings to a rumor, for the moment without foundation, according to which ASO would declare a winner only if the event passes the bar of its 10e stage, scheduled between the island of Oléron and the island of Ré on September 8. Before this date, which corresponds to the halfway point, the leader of the general classification could not claim the final victory if the race were shortened. The teams surveyed on this scenario are unanimous: such a regulatory change could also change the way of racing.
For ASO, the UCI and the sports groups, it is urgent to lock in a new text, as Jean-Jacques Bertrand suggests: “The Tour de France is based on a membership contract. If you participate in it, you accept the rules. This membership is based either on the signing of a contract, or on the fact that as a team or cyclist, one is affiliated to the International Cycling Union, which is deemed to approve the ASO regulations. The problem, here, would arise from adherence to a regulation that we do not know. “ Even so, if the different parties agreed on a set of rules by the start on Saturday, that would not mean the end of loopholes and legal remedies.
The health reason
Amaury sport organization provides in its regulations (article 29) that all “Dispute will be submitted to the Arbitration Chamber for Sport”, that is to say before the French National Olympic and Sports Committee (CNOSF). But other jurisdictions can be seized, in particular the CAS based in Switzerland. Based on the principle that the decision to approve or not the classification of the Tour rests with the UCI, and that the decisions of the UCI are contested before the CAS … Moreover, riders could lodge a complaint with the “classic” courts.
But who would win the case? The jurisdictions could, whatever they be, privilege the sanitary reason on the sporting stakes. This is what happened in the spring for Ligue 1 football. The Professional League had stopped the classification of the competition at its 28e day, the last played, to the chagrin of clubs like OL (which could not obtain a European ticket), Amiens or Toulouse (relegated). PSG, largely in the lead, had been designated champion. “The remedies envisaged in football did not succeed in practice because they came up against the principle of proportionality, recalls Joëlle Monlouis. It is a principle of fundamental law, which means that the infringement of the regulations (the interruption of the championship) is less important than the goal pursued (the concern to protect the health of the players). “
The test imbroglio
More generally, a premature end to the Tour de France could give rise to cascading legal battles among the organizers, the participants… and their respective partners and insurers. “Can the parties invoke a case of force majeure? asks Jean-Jacques Bertrand. The possibility that the Tour cannot take place in its entirety is made foreseeable by the hypothesis of a second wave which we have been talking about for at least three months. “
Equally worrying, the exclusion of a rider or a team on the basis of “symptoms” or a positive Covid-19 test, as ASO has predicted so far, could be denounced in court. Especially since the Bora-Hansgrohe imbroglio. The German team was forced to forfeit Tuesday for the Bretagne Classic, in Plouay (Morbihan), due to a positive Covid-19 test result from one of its runners three days before the start … another test producing a negative verdict on the morning of the race. According to the team, “It is reasonable to conclude that this was a false positive test result”.
Pierre Carrey
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