French Women’s Basketball Clubs Call for Expansion to Fourteen Teams in LFB by 2025

Published on March 22, 2024 at 6:35 p.m. – updated on March 22, 2024 at 6:36 p.m. Mathieu Warnier

Through a joint press release, all LFB clubs, joined by those of LF2, asked the FFBB to expand their division to fourteen teams from 2025 and to review the championship formula.

There is a wind of protest in French women’s basketball. Since the 2017-2018 season, the Women’s Basketball League (LFB) has been contested by twelve teams. A format that the clubs wish to see evolve by 2025 with an increase to fourteen formations. Indeed, it is through a press release that the twelve LFB clubs as well as the twelve clubs of the Women’s League 2 (LF2), a division which will increase to fourteen clubs in 2025, asked the French Basketball Federation ( FFBB) to change its position regarding the format of the women’s championships. Among the arguments put forward is the idea of ​​“revitalizing the championship formula and making it more equitable”. The clubs thus propose a format with more matches in the regular season, an eight-player final phase and also a simplification of the relegation system. While the team transferred to LF2 is currently designated at the end of a phase of “play-downs”, seen as “sportingly unfair, illegible for the public, economically dangerous”.

Clubs ready to act

It is also a question of “creating jobs for high-level professional athletes” or “making the championship attractive and visible to the community of fans, media and partners”. Professional clubs also want to “defend (their) model in the face of competition” such as foreign championships and the WNBA while providing “a medium-term vision and ambition”. All of French women’s basketball assures that they want “urgent and favorable arbitration so that this move to fourteen clubs in LFB is a reality from the 2025-2026 season”, adding that this is “essential for the future of high-level women’s basketball”. level “. Questioned by the daily The team, a club president says he wants “this to lead to reasonable negotiations” with the FFBB but also says he is ready to “consider symbolic actions” to make himself heard. “ We don’t want a blurred horizon as presented with the reformed LF2 and a ‘we’ll see then’ “, he added.

2024-03-22 23:33:39
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