Coupe de France: like the PSG-Fleury final, does Ile-de-France really dominate women’s football?
The summit of French women’s football will take place on Saturday, May 4, in Montpellier, land of the pioneers of the discipline, between two Ile-de-France clubs: Paris Saint-Germain and FC Fleury 91. A great first in the short history of the Women’s French Cup, the first final of which took place in 2002 between Toulouse and FC Lyon. The qualification of the two clubs, after the ouster of Paris FC by Paris Saint-Germain in the semi-finals, marks the rise in power of women’s football in Ile-de-France, even if it acts as an illusion.
The region has three first division clubs, out of 12, where only Paris Saint-Germain plays in the elite among boys. But its weight in women’s football as a whole – French and international – is far from being comparable with men’s football. Often described as “the largest breeding ground in the world”, the region provides 10% of the top 5 European men’s players. The ratio is three times lower on the women’s side, with only 3.67% of players from Ile-de-France playing in the elite of the Old Continent, mainly in D1 Arkema (55 of the 61 players listed in the European top 5 ).
The difference is also felt in the French team. Of the 23 players called up by Hervé Renard during the last gathering of the French women’s team, only five are trained in the region, compared to 13 among Didier Deschamps’ latest nominees. “There is no talent problem in Ile-de-France”, however, assures Antoine Ferreira, recruitment coordinator for the women’s section of Paris FC for more than four years. But if these promising young players do not reach the high level, it is more due to a structural problem.
“We are not on the same system as the boyscompares Fabrice Abriel, coach of FC Fleury 91. Not all clubs have a training center, let alone pre-training [entre 11 et 15 ans]. There is no national under-17 championship: up to 15 years old, girls still play with boys…“A national problem therefore, but accentuated by certain trends specific to Ile-de-France. Traveling the region in search of new talents for the training of Paris FC, Antoine Ferreira notes a “loss” Ile-de-France talents.
The reason ? Parisian educators who are a little cautious with their young shoots in clubs, who encourage them to join clubs far from Ile-de-France, although rich in women’s clubs, in order to assert themselves in the nine other clubs of the French championship . But in quasi-amateur women’s football, few entities are able to provide the human and financial resources necessary to properly support these uprooted footballers. A D1 Arkema club, for example, accommodates some of its young Ile-de-France residents, minors, in Airbnbs rented by management and made available on weekends, without supervision, to prevent them from making the return trip.
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