The organization that runs French professional volleyball (Ligue Nationale de Volley – LNV) acted against its own regulations in 2021 to help its most-titled women’s club avoid demotion and bankruptcy.
According to RMC Sport, the fact that it still plays in the French Championship (Ligue A), the country’s women’s club with most national league titles (21) Cannes owes to the goodwill and generosity of the LNV. The website unveiled a letter sent by the president of the body, Mr. Yves Bouget (elected in December 2020), in which he stressed that “the LNV, out of respect for the exceptional sporting past of RC Cannes, hadn’t applied the regulations in all its legitimacy, that is to say, demotion, in order to avoid the club filing for bankruptcy. For 3 years, the club’s liabilities have represented 30% of the budget, which would prohibit it from playing in the women’s Ligue A.” This financial situation of the 2-time CEV Champions League winners is due to “an accumulation of tax and social adjustments for having freed itself from respecting the laws of France for more than 10 years.”
This is an unprecedented decision by the LNV, especially given that it had no mercy on the two men’s clubs, Rennes (relegated in 2018) and Paris (in 2020), for similar misdemeanors. The prize list of the latter (1 Champions League, 2 CEV Cups, and 9 titles of champions of France, among others) had however not weighed very heavily within an LNV committee.
Cannes failed to pay for social security contributions and charges on several occasions: 156,232 euros in 2019/20; 157,534 euros for the years 2012 to 2014; 139,424 euros for the period between 2007 and 2010.
