The French football league system is a series of interconnected leagues for club football in France. At the top two levels of the system is the Ligue de Football Professionnel, which consists of two professional national divisions, Ligue 1 and Ligue 2. Below that are a number of leagues run by the Fédération Française de Football. At level 3 is the semi-professional Championnat National. Below that is the amateur Championnat de France amateur (level 4), which is divided into four parallel regional divisions, followed by the Championnat de France amateur 2 (level 5), which is divided into eight parallel regional divisions. Underneath that are many more regional leagues and divisions. Clubs finishing the season at or near the top of their division may be eligible for promotion to a higher division. Similarly, clubs finishing at or near the bottom of their division may be relegated to a lower division.
Famous quotes containing the words french, football, league and/or system:
“The French Revolution gave birth to no artists but only to a great journalist, Desmoulins, and to an under-the-counter writer, Sade. The only poet of the times was the guillotine.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)
“You can’t be a Real Country unless you have A BEER and an airline—it helps if you have some kind of a football team, or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a BEER.”
—Frank Zappa (1940–1993)
“He will deliver you from six troubles; in seven no harm shall touch you. In famine he will redeem you from death, and in war from the power of the sword. You shall be hidden from the scourge of the tongue, and shall not fear destruction when it comes. At destruction and famine you shall laugh, and shall not fear the wild animals of the earth. For you shall be in league with the stones of the field, and the wild animals shall be at peace with you.”
—Bible: Hebrew, Job 5:19-23.
“Short of a wholesale reform of college athletics—a complete breakdown of the whole system that is now focused on money and power—the women’s programs are just as doomed as the men’s are to move further and further away from the academic mission of their colleges.... We have to decide if that’s the kind of success for women’s sports that we want.”
—Christine H. B. Grant, U.S. university athletic director. As quoted in the Chronicle of Higher Education, p. A42 (May 12, 1993)