#INSERT type:image caption:UEFA president Michel Platini has backed plans for a sports tribunal in France after the drawn-out sagas of Luzenac and Lens. END#
UEFA president Michel Platini has backed plans to introduce a sports tribunal in France after the drawn-out sagas of Luzenac and Lens that threatened to plunge French football into chaos this summer.
- Barthez admits defeat in Luzenac fight
Earlier this week, World Cup winner Fabien Barthez resigned from his position as director general of Luzenac after failing with his last-ditch appeal to the French Football Federation (FFF) to allow the Minnows, who hail from a southwestern French village of some 650 inhabitants, to play in Ligue 2 this season.
The meeting at FFF headquarters on Wednesday was the last step in the club's battle to have their promotion from the National division, in which they finished runners-up last season, validated.
It had been preceded by a three-month litany of hearings and appeals to the DNCG, the body that oversees French football's finances, the French Olympic Committee (CNOSF), the French Football League (LFP) and a court in Toulouse.
Platini, 59, in France to help President Francois Hollande launch Euro 2016 on Thursday, told media he supported the call from LFP president Frederic Thiriez to establish a body which could resolve such matters much more quickly.
"An essential element is missing in these procedures: a French sports tribunal that can take decisions immediately. I support Frederic Thiriez, who has asked for one to be created," the UEFA boss said.
At one stage, with their promotion sanctioned by the court, Luzenac appeared set to join Ligue 2 after the start of the campaign, thus -- with relegated Chateauroux already having been told they would instead remain in Ligue 2 -- making it an unwieldy 21-team division.
Having eventually had their arguments fall on deaf ears, Luzenac and Barthez finally had to concede defeat, bringing to an end the issue more than a month into the second tier season.
Ligue 1 club Lens endured a similar fate as a consequence of the DNCG's scrutiny of their accounts, only winning their fight to have their promotion from Ligue 2 rubber-stamped just over a week before the beginning of the top-flight campaign.