ABSTRACT
Football is by far the most popular sport in France, both in terms of practice and audience. For the 2008–2009 season, there were about 17,750 clubs affiliated to the French Football Federation (FFF, hereafter French FA), with a total membership of 2.2 million licensees, almost exclusively masculine (2.7 percent of women). These clubs, playing an estimated total of 1 million matches per year, employ about 7,000 people and rely on the implication of 350,000 volunteers. 1 Average attendance to a League 1 match is around 20,000. Though the French FA is a non-profit association with a public service mission, it has an increasing commercial dimension and its sales revenue amounted to €205 millions in 2008–2009. That same year, total revenue of Ligue 1 clubs was close to €1.3 billion. 2
