PARIS: The tiny French village football team of Luzenac, denied permission to play in the second division, yesterday disbanded their first team while French World Cup-winning goalkeeper Fabien Barthez stepped down as managing director.
Luzenac refused to play in the amateur French championship (CFA 2), as proposed by the French football federation, Barthez said.
The club will continue to exist in the DHR (division d’honneur regionale), the amateur seventh division, with the second team now becoming the first team.
“I’m pulling out of the club from today with (president) Jerome Ducros,” Barthez said after meeting with his players.
“You need to know when to say ‘stop’, when you can no longer struggle. We can no longer struggle.”
Barthez added: “We were received this morning by (federation president Noel) Le Graet, who confirmed to us that Luzenac could play in CFA 2.
“We did all we could to get back into National. I became president and majority shareholder. Everything’s stalled, as well as the budget.
“We take the list of pros and cons and there’s no comparison. For the shareholders, it was not the same project to play in CFA 2. We suggested to Luzenac townhall and the town’s sporting association to play in CFA 2, but they refused.”
Luzenac’s erstwhile midfielder Nicolas Dieuze earlier bemoaned the stark fact that many players were now unemployed.
“The second team becomes the first team. The players are freed from their contracts and are now in the jobmarket,” he told AFP.
“Who would have thought that five months after our promotion to Ligue 2, we’d be saying goodbye to each other in a car park?” lamented Dieuze.
The ex-Toulouse player, who had been at Luzenac for two seasons, added: “I feel a lot of sadness about what’s been done over recent years.
“They’re sending us to DHR with a great kick up the bum. In two weeks, we’ll no longer speak about Luzenac.
“The players, like many people in France, will go down to the dole office.”
Luzenac (pop. 649) had caught the public’s attention with their fairytale rise from obscurity, winning promotion from the third tier of French football last season.
The Professional Football League (LFP) since ruled that they could not take their place in Ligue 2 because their ground did not conform to the required safety standards.
Last season, the club from the Pyrenees, whose own Stade Paul Fedou has only one stand and 400 seats, played their home games at nearby Foix, where the capacity was just 3,000.AFP
