Senegal to end league with November play-offs
The top Senegalese football leagues that have been suspended since March will be decided by play-offs in November, the Senegalese Football Federation has said.
In a first for Africa, the full remaining schedule of 13 games will not be played. Instead, the 14-team Ligue 1 and Ligue 2 will be split and the seven teams at the top will compete in a mini-league for the title and promotion, whilst the bottom seven will do likewise for the relegation places.
"According to me, this is the only wise decision in this pandemic period," told BBC Sport Africa Matthieu Chupin, president of AS Dakar Sacré-Coeur 4th of the Senegalese Ligue 1 when it stopped.
“We are all sports addicts - everybody is looking forward to being back for training and games - and November looks far away. But there is no other way”.
All the teams will have a schedule of six games instead of the 13 remaining, and they will start the shortened final phase with the points they won during the season.
This way, the leader of Senegalese Ligue 1 Teungueth FC will start the play-offs 12 points ahead of second place Jaraaf, hoping to keep their advantage and win their first league title.
Amara Traoré, president of Ligue 2 leaders Linguère Saint-Louis, said he regretted that the season had not been stopped as it had been in France.
But the former Senegal national team striker said he did not believe there would be a threat regarding promotion: “we are confident - we are six points ahead so it’s like two of our final six games will be like wildcards. Let’s keep the same dynamic.”
The postponement of the leagues to November applies to all other national and regional leagues in Senegal, including the women league.
A total of around 280m FCFA ($460,000) will also be allocated by the Federation to all the clubs to help them face the consequences of the pandemic.
Ligue 1 clubs will receive a subvention of 5m FCFA (around $8,200) each; those in Ligue 2 3.5m FCFA (around $5,700) each.
This article originally appeared on BBC Sport
Photo: BBC