Marseille president Vincent Labrune has insisted that French football is beginning to die in the wake of the government's proposed new super tax.
Ligue 1 and Ligue 2 clubs recently united to appeal against the idea, which is aimed at those earning more than £850,000 per year with the strategy to tax them at a rate of 75%, and will now go on strike on the weekend of November 29 and 30.
"OM is in total agreement with this decision," Labrune told om.net. "First of all, we are one of the clubs that will be affected most by this absolutely unfair law. It makes absolutely no economic sense because the final result will be the complete opposite of what it is trying to achieve.
"We are fiscally puncturing businesses that are already struggling financially, by asking them to pay tax on the best paid employees. And to top it off, it will be backdated. It's crazy! Football already pays more than £600m in taxes and also pays more than £111m to amateur football. We don't need people giving us lessons from the moral high ground.
"It is completely false to claim we are not doing our part to help the country. This tax was originally created to tax the big bosses of the big multinationals. Football is not like other businesses because the players that earn more than a £1m and will be concerned by this tax, won't pay it. The government is asking their employers to pay this tax.
"The clubs will die. You can't sum up French football as the 114 players that earn more than £1m. French football is 25,000 jobs and the vast majority of them earn minimum wage. Today their jobs are in danger. We have already lost two this year in Le Mans and Sedan. It's only the beginning."
Marseille travel to Rennes in Ligue 1 on Saturday.
Matt Cotton
