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Ligue 1: in February, Monaco-Lyon could be played … in China

A match of the French Ligue 1 Championship in the Middle Kingdom? But yes, everything is definitely possible in football in this fall 2021. The Professional Football League (LFP) wants to relocate a poster of L1 in China and has targeted Monaco-Lyon next February, said a source with knowledge of the matter, an operation which nevertheless remains subject to a “derogation” from Fifa.

The LFP “has targeted, with the agreement of the two clubs, the Monaco-Lyon match” of the 23rd day of Ligue 1 scheduled for the weekend of 5-6 February 2022, said this source, confirming information from L ‘ Team.

For a year now, the League has made its international development one of the lifelines of French professional football, while its international TV rights remain very low compared to other major European championships. The body hopes to make the L1 the first European championship to relocate a regular season game abroad.

“This is an ambitious operation”

According to L’Équipe, the meeting could be relocated to Shanghai and OL president Jean-Michel Aulas discussed this last Saturday with Monegasque leader Oleg Petrov on the sidelines of the OL-ASM match (2-0). “This is an ambitious operation for the image of the L1 and its distribution”, enthuses Jean-Michel Aulas, quoted by the daily.

The project remains however subject to the agreement of Fifa, which had already opposed in the past to similar projects of the Spanish La Liga, which tried in vain to organize in Miami a Girona-Barcelona match, then a meeting. Villarreal-Atlético de Madrid. In 2020, the Fifa “Partners” Commission had ruled by opposing official matches relocated to a foreign country (excluding Super Cups, such as the Champions Trophy in France), confirming the position of the international federation. The LFP nevertheless hopes to “serve as a laboratory” and “will take official steps to obtain an exceptional exemption”

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