They've robbed us of an European opportunity, states Jean-Michel Aulas
Olympique Lyon president Jean-Michel Aulas complained that they have been ‘robbed’ of a continental spot due to the termination Ligue 1 a few days ago. The Ligue 1 joined the Dutch and Belgium as they became the first of Europe's major leagues to call-off their season over the COVID-19 pandemic.
The French league was called-off last week owing to the coronavirus outbreak, following the footsteps of the Eredivisie. Unlike the later, the Ligue 1 declared Paris Saint Germain as the champions while second-placed and third-placed teams, Olympique Marseille and Stade de Rennais also joined them as qualifiers for the Champions League.
Meanwhile, Stade de Reims, Lille, and Nice were awarded Europa League spots for the next season due to their respective finishes in the league table before the suspension. Olympique Lyon, a regular entrant in European tournaments for the past 23 years, was placed at the seventh position, will miss out on continental action next season. Their president Jean-Michel Aulas stated that they were being robbed of an opportunity.
"This is robbing us of an opportunity that is very significant, of high value. We are going to claim damages that are worth several dozen million Euros,” said the club president, as reported by Goal.com.
"We find that the LFP moved very quickly to stop the league. We put together a number of other scenarios, with playoffs that could have interested a number of TV broadcasters,” added the official.
Aulas further added to state that they are not ready to attack any team, even though he believes that Nice, the fifth-placed team played more games than Lyin and even played Paris Saint Germain just once.
"I don’t want to attack one club more than another but Nice [who finished fifth] played more home games than us and played PSG once, while Lyon played them twice. This is not a decision without consequences, like for the amateur clubs. There are considerable things at stake. Over the course of the last 10 years, Lyon made up ground at least three times on the second-placed side when there was a situation of being more than 10 points behind them,” said Aulas.