National (D3)
| National 1 | |
| Full name | Championnat de France National |
| abbreviation | D3 |
| hierarchy | 3rd league |
| Teams | 18th |
| master | Red Star FC |
|
↑ Ligue 2 (II) ↓ National 2 (IV)
|
|
National (D3) or fully Championnat de France National , occasionally still today with the historical addition Division 3 or D3 , is the third highest division in French men's football behind Ligue 1 and Ligue 2 . Both amateur and professional clubs are currently eligible to play in it; the organizational responsibility for match operations, controls (penalties, suspensions, eligibility to play, promotion and relegation), etc. lies with the French football association, the Fédération Française de Football (FFF). It has been called National 1 since the 2017/18 season .
history
There was a third division since 1936, but this was subject to frequent structural changes and with the exception of the 1936/37 season (at that time the two best-placed teams from Racing Arras and US Tourcoing rose to the second division) a pure amateur league. In addition, the championship in the D3 at that time did not automatically entitle them to promotion to the professional leagues - rather, clubs could be admitted to Division 2 on application , even if they had not qualified in sports, and vice versa, D3 champions were denied admission to professionalism.
A third league as a real substructure for the professional divisions was not created again until 1970; it last consisted of six regional groups with 16 teams each. From the 1993/94 season it was reorganized under the name National 1 , comprised two seasons (north and south) of 20 teams up to and including 1996/97 and played in a single, nationwide group of 20 until 2013. Only 18 teams have participated since the 2013/14 season.
Host mode and admission
The championship is determined in the D3 by home and away games of each club against each other; also here today u. a. the three-point rule and, in the event of a tie, the goal difference to determine the exact placement, although initially the direct comparison of clubs with equal points (only the points, not the hits) is used. Nowadays, the two top-ranked teams in the National are promoted directly to Ligue 2, while the third-placed team can also qualify for promotion in a relegation against the third-bottom of Ligue 2. The four bottom of the table are relegated to the fourth league (formerly Championnat de France Amateur or CFA, recently National 2 ) and are replaced by the same number of relegated or promoted players. Reserve or second teams cannot be promoted to National 1.
Relegated persons from D2 to D3 are generally allowed to retain their professional status for up to two years (statut professionnel probatoire) ; this is intended to achieve greater continuity in the planning of the clubs that may a. can also continue to operate their junior training centers ( center de formation ), which are compulsory for professional clubs . Five clubs (GFC Ajaccio, AS Béziers, FC Bourg-Péronnas, US Quevilly-Rouen, Red Star FC) made use of this opportunity in the 2019/20 season. Upon application, they can even retain their professional status for longer than two years, if the Ligue de Football Professionnel considers the economic prerequisites to be given.
With an average attendance of 1,500 to 2,000 viewers per game and only a small share of the television money distributed by the association - in 2008/09 each club received € 250,000 from this source - this hurdle is relatively high. In the run-up to the 2009/10 season, for example, the Direction nationale du contrôle de gestion (DNCG) , which is responsible for licensing, refused permission to participate in twelve of the 20 clubs or only granted it under, in some cases, considerable financial conditions: Bayonne, Croix de Savoie , Pacy and Rodez had to cut their expenses, Beauvais, Cassis Carnoux and Louhans-Cuiseaux could prove higher securities (the latter two had not yet been approved four weeks before the start of the season), five others were outclassed: Libourne-Saint-Seurin in fourth, three the four athletically qualified climbers from the CFA (Besançon, Luzenac, Rouen) to the fifth and Sète, which had declared its illiquidity at the beginning of June 2009 , even to the sixth (Division d'Honneur) . For Sète, Stade Plabennec , one of the table runners-up in the fourth-highest division, moved up; Luzenac was finally allowed to participate. However, these notices were not yet legally binding. Besançon's President Vincent Diaz has now assessed these events as "decisions from a banana republic". In 2010 it was only clear how the league would be composed 14 days before the start of the season: Bastia and Strasbourg, two relegated second division leagues, were only able to secure their place in the National while there were five promoted players from the CFA.
National clubs eligible for promotion have the right to refuse promotion to Ligue 2 without sanctioning if they do not want to take the step from amateurism to professionalism. In this case, one less club would be relegated to the national team from there. At the end of the 1990s, the qualified FC Gueugnon had applied to play in the professional league under amateur conditions; this was rejected, however, because there is no option for professionalism above the national level.
The regular game days are Friday and Saturday.
The national in the 2020/21 season
At the start of the season, the National had the following composition:
|
|
The champions since 1993/94
|
|
|
|
Remarks
- ↑ see the final table 1936/37 at rsssf.com
- ↑ France Football of December 21, 2010, p. 55, and of June 4, 2013, p. 39.
- ↑ see in this communication of the LFP from 2007, below under ( Memento of February 8, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) DNCG
- ↑ France Football of June 16, 2009, p. 20.
- ↑ France Football of June 23, 2009, p. 27; on the possible "successors" see this France Football article ( Memento of 7 July 2009 in the Internet Archive ).
- ↑ France Football, July 7, 2009, p. 36.