french

football
culture

france doesn't have a football culture eric cantona

5 reasons why
we have a dierent football culture

not into sport

not into pop
culture
not into winning
different taboos
different turn ons

France is not a country of sport didier deschamps

few free time per week dedicated to sport

behind in terms of physical activity
80% of the population is below the daily
amount recommended by ONU.

behind in terms of interest

68% are interested in a sport, the lowest rate
among all european countries
only one major newspaper dedicated to sport

US

8,1

spain

7,2

italy

5,8

german

4,1

france

3,9

low football stadium attendance

not educated to the

value of sport ?

behind in terms of infrastructures

sport is traditionally an adjustment variable for the Ministry of National Education.
It is only with a law in 1982 that local authorities were asked to provide schools with sport facilities.
still an on-going building process.

behind in terms of consideration

see academic subjects disciplines intellectuelles as superior
very protective of our culture (books, art, music...) but dont consider sport as being part of it

France is not a country of football because we dont have a pop culture Hubert Artus

there is only one Culture, our french culture. everything else is subculture.
therefore we try to integrate football into our conception of culture.

SoFoot - magazine at the intersection of

foot and politics (the vice of football)

Surface - magazine at the intersection of

fashion/lifestyle and foot (the QG of football)

Mark The Hugly - show on Canal+ webTV

that is all about trashing footballers

The two last FIFA videogame

world champions were french

they dont have the culture of winning here Leonardo

the poulidor syndrome

raymond poulidor was a french cyclist that fought to win the tour de
france but always finished second. he became a legend - far more
popular than the french winners back then (anquetil and merckx).
le petit poucet of the football cup
when an amateur club reaches the final stages of the national cup,
the whole country is supporting this petit poucet (tom thumb),
symbol of a fight against the foot business.

beautiful losers magical square

platinis and the magical square (failed in semi-finals two times) is the most
admired french football team in history, before zidanes winning team

we hate domination
according to president of lyon, the popularity of its club had never been so
low than during the years of supremacy (7 championships in a row) :
in france, people dont like winners, or at least not over the long term

the essential thing is not to have won, but to participate

this quote from pierre de coubertin (founder of the modern olympic games, introduced sport in schools) is a
national motto that summarize our vision of sport

its not about football. france got a problem with money Frederic Thiriez

sex isnt taboo, money and racism are

clashico - journalists renaming

PSG-Monaco game

zahia - players involved in sex

scandal with an underage prostitute

cover of the most popular gay magazine

u n i o n o f f re n c h p l a y e r s
decided to go on strike next
week in protest of a new law
taxing high salaries up to 75%

quotas - french federation involved in a

discriminative law that would favor nativeborn french in pre-formation training academy

the little scums or caids generation, in

reference to their origins and social
background. journalists mentioned ethnical
tensions. ultra-conservative politics claimed
people cannot identify to the team.

96% think football

players are overpaid

our team is never better than when his back is against the walls Franois Hollande

from the myth of indomitable gaul to the french revolution or de Gaulle

we like to think we have a revolutionary soul and embrace drama.

for the worst - when individual think they are above the law

in an after-game press conf, cantona

said the french coach was full of crap

players refusing to get off the bus in a

protest of anelkas expulsion for insulting
the coach shut the f**k up son of a b**ch

79% say they dont like the french team.

9% only consider players have the love of the jersey
5 junior players punished after
having taken a night cab from
amsterdam to paris for partying...
on the eve of a major game.

we are conflict-driven. tough love is a thing.

football isnt the national sport, criticizing it is.
for the best - when a group move mountains against all odds

the chief editor of lequipe wrote the coach was incompetent,

bet france will never win the world cup. the coachs first words
to journalists after final victory were I will never forgive

coach domenech was criticized for asking the old ones to

come back. the heroes of 98 were mistreated until they beat
spain who claimed they would put zidane in a retirement state

famous journalist declared not going to

the world cup would be a good thing
as french people hate their team,
those guys need to get out of here
for the first time, a team qualified for
after having lost the first game 2-0

tough love

a brand that perfectly understood how to adapt its purpose to our football culture

Nike appealing to our

revolutionary spirit

turning a tricky topic, the

social background of
players, into a strength

media

yes we embrace second screen

french channel canal+ intensively

promoting its dedicated foot apps

around 1 250 000 tweets about France-Ukraine, the second most tweeted event ever

especially since we dont have a sport bar culture

second screen usage is reinforced by the fact that we mostly watch
games at home, our favorite device by hand.
the game opposing france and ukrainia is the best tv audience for 2013.
last year, 6 of the 8 best tv audiences were football games.

watching football turning into a privilege

whereas television rights for our national ligue used to be shared between public, private and pay television, it
is now entirely owned by premium channels

= 35/month

caf sport
if you randomly walk into a caf, you have very few chances to catch
a game. therefore platforms like allomatch are booming : geolocalized
service to find where a particular sport event is broadcasted

illegal streaming
piracy is big in france.
when the government took actions to punish P2P download, the
french moved to illegal streaming.

twitter is our tabloids

football truly made twitter popular among teens.
since we like conflict so much, tweet clash became a highly regarded
digital discipline.

bonus

sacred sphere

release valve

celebration

political sphere