Football strike on over French tax

French football clubs said on Thursday they will push ahead with a historic strike after President Francois Hollande rejected their demands to be exempt from a 75 percent tax on high-earners.

The strike - planned for the last weekend of November and including clubs from France's Ligue 1 and Ligue 2 first and second divisions - will be the first in French football since 1972.

Club chiefs met with Hollande on Thursday in a desperate bid to push for their exemption, but left empty-handed.

The tax on incomes of more than 1 million euros ($1.4 million) must apply to "all companies concerned", Hollande was quoted in a statement as telling the clubs.

He also invited clubs to work with the government on developing a "durable and balanced economic model" for the industry.

Football chiefs said they now had no choice but to push ahead with the strike.

"The president listened attentively but absolutely did not hear us," said Frederic Thiriez, the head of the French Football League.

"No solution was found tonight, so the mobilization is going ahead," he said.

The tax, one of the Socialist leader's main electoral promises, is part of next year's budget but has not yet been approved by parliament.

The proposed levy is temporary and will affect income earned this year and in 2014. It is aimed at helping the eurozone's second-largest economy reduce a huge budget deficit.

Hollande's initial proposal to tax the rich on individual incomes of more than 1 million euros was shot down as unconstitutional by the country's top court.

But the government came back with a modified proposal that now makes companies liable to pay the 75 percent tax rate for the portion of employees' salaries above the million-euro ceiling.

Football clubs complain that the move will hit them especially hard because they sign players on short-term contracts. They say the tax will make it impossible to attract top-flight talent.

In protest of the tax, clubs in Ligue 1 and 2 have said they will not take part in matches from Nov 29 to Dec 2 in what has been described as a "historic protest".

Football clubs argue that the measure will cost Ligue 1 about 44 million euros, given the high salaries earned by about 120 players from 14 clubs.

Qatari-owned Paris Saint-Germain, France's richest club, counts more than 10 players whose pay exceeds the 1 million euro bracket, including Swedish striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic.

Although the tax proposal has been criticized by the opposition, there has been overwhelming agreement across the political spectrum that high-earning footballers should not be let off the hook.

"I don't weep for them," said Dominique Bussereau, a former minister from ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy's center-right UMP party. "I have no particular sympathy for professional football."

Marine Le Pen, the leader of the far-right National Front, added: "It's indecent to see football clubs who are paying goalkeepers 120,000 euros per month come and complain, while millions of French have fallen victim to austerity."

Agence France-Presse

(China Daily 11/02/2013 page6)