October 16: The French Football Federation has returned to profit with revenue approaching €300m, giving Philippe Diallo’s administration room to push record funds into the amateur and women’s game, even as the professional leagues continue to struggle with a far less comfortable financial picture.
The FFF closed 2025/26 with a profit of €4.1 million, reversing the previous year’s deficit, while support for grassroots football, the Women’s Professional Football League and other development programs rose to €117.2 million, more than €10 million more than the previous year.
The federation renewed its long-term agreement with Nike until 2034 and added six new commercial partners, helping to bring revenue to a record level. The Nike deal also contains a specific element of amateur football rather than just covering national teams.
Diallo said: “With record revenues expected to continue in the long term and controlled spending, the FFF generated a profit of €4.1m, while increasing its support for amateur (and women’s) football to an unprecedented level of almost €120m, soon to reach €140m for the 2026-27 season.”
The contrast with France’s professional game is hard to miss: for the second year in a row, the FFF has agreed to waive the €10m it owes the Ligue de Football Professionnel, effectively maintaining its support for an organization still dealing with the damage caused by the collapse of its previous national broadcasting deal with MediaPro.
Since then, the LFP has taken a much more direct role in distribution through its Ligue 1+ platform, which now offers all top-flight matches domestically, while rebuilding its international rights network on a market-by-market basis.
This makes the FFF’s position seem unusually strong in the current French football landscape.
The federation has also announced a separate €2.2m package aimed at helping around 12,000 fan clubs absorb rising transport and fuel costs, while development spending could rise to €140m this season.
There are also savings on the cost side. The FFF’s previous accounts had flagged the Stade de France lease as a significant burden; this agreement ended before the 2025/26 financial year.
While Ligue 1 clubs are still adapting to a radically altered broadcast market, their federation has rebuilt its commercial base, returned to the black and found more money to send up the pyramid.
Contact the writer of this story, Harry Ewing, at (email protected)
