RC Lens have publicly refused to budge on the April 11 Ligue 1 fixture against PSG, releasing an official statement on Monday that takes direct aim at what the club describe as a growing culture of powerful clubs reshaping the French football calendar to suit their European ambitions.
PSG approached Lens over the past week, requesting the fixture be moved. The game falls between their Champions League quarter-final legs against Liverpool, with the first leg on April 8 and the return on April 14, and the Parisians argued that a title clash three days before a European quarter-final was unreasonably placed.
Lens had already stated their position privately, choosing initially to stay silent publicly out of what they described as “a spirit of responsibility and restraint.” Public statements and suggestions have forced their hand.
The stakes could not be higher. Lens sit one point behind PSG in the Ligue 1 table and host the league leaders at Bollaert-Delelis on April 11.
A win would take them top with eight games remaining. Walking away from that fixture without a fight was never a realistic option.
“It does indeed appear to us that a troubling sentiment is taking hold: that of a French championship gradually relegated to the status of an adjustment variable at the whim of the European imperatives of some,” a statement by the Lens-based club read.
Moving the game, Lens argued, would leave them without a competitive fixture for 15 days before a gruelling run of matches every three days, a schedule that suits a club with PSG’s resources far better than one operating on the tenth largest budget in the division.
The Pas-de-Calais outfit, in their statement, also reached beyond this dispute, referencing the reduction of Ligue 1 to 18 clubs and the scrapping of the Coupe de la Ligue as symptoms of a competition already bending to accommodate interests that extend well beyond French football’s borders.
The date, for now, stands.
