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Football’s most influential new league is coming – and it starts in August
Robin Bairner
- Updated: 20 Feb 2026 11:59 GMT
- 6 min read
Feature
Plans for what might become the most influential football league in the world are currently being finalised – and it could be here by the start of the 2026/27 season.
The third tier of French football is not one that global supporters will be familiar with, yet clubs like Versailles, Paris 13 Atletico and Kylian Mbappe’s Caen could soon find themselves with a pivotal role that determines how fans across the world watch the game.
The French FA has approved proposals for an ambitious new third professional league to be launched in the country, with €11 million in funding put aside for its development. This is set to be fast-tracked through, with the intention of kicking it off in August.
Its foundation will be built upon innovation with the laws of the game, with time-wasting to be clamped down on and sin bins to be implemented, as well as a focus on youth development.
Ligue 3 born out of financial crisis
French football has been forced to look outside the box in recent years due to the funding crisis that has hit clubs. While the national team continues to perform well on the world stage, domestically, the game finds itself in a state of crisis.
TV revenue, upon which so much was based, has evaporated in recent years due, in part, to the collapse of a lucrative deal, forcing professional teams to innovate.
What were once two professional leagues of 20 teams each have been cut to 18, giving fewer clubs a bigger slice of the pie. The new proposals, though, will create three professional leagues of 18.
The structure of Ligue 3
What’s the attraction of watching third-tier football in France? This a league, after all, in which only two teams (Caen and Sochaux) post average attendances of over 10,000 and only five clubs break the 3,000 mark on a typical basis.
France, too, is a large country, surpassed in size in Europe only by Russia and Ukraine. Travelling costs, then, are not cheap for clubs being run on a shoestring budget.
With the background of the domestic scene’s financial crisis, these are issues that chiefs have no doubt had to wrestle with.
“Our strategy has been to focus on its quality before even thinking about selling a league that’s not getting enough attention,” Strasbourg president Marc Keller admitted last summer in L'Equipe.
“We believe that by being innovative and attractive, we can generate greater interest than we see today.”
These plans have since been developed, and a funding strategy put in place.
“€11m will be allocated to this league,” Philippe Diallo, president of the French FA (FFF) announced on Tuesday.
“These funds will be distributed through club licensing fees as well as travel and relegation subsidies.”
In addition to this, there will be a mass salary cap to help prevent clubs from spending beyond their means.
Time-wasting improvements and sin bin: New laws to be tested
The real kicker for Ligue 3, though, will come on the field.
In order to produce a more attractive product, the French FA is prepared to toy with the rules and has already asked IFAB, which is the body responsible for overseeing the laws of the game, for permission to implement special measures.
Among the changes that supporters can look forward to are plans to “combat time-wasting” and to introduce sin bins for players who commit certain fouls.
These alternations are designed to make the game a better spectacle, while it will also set the league up as a potential petri dish for innovative changes in the future. Arsene Wenger’s daylight offside law, for example, could first be trialled here.
The FFF are, therefore, proposing a league that could be played in a style unlike anywhere else in the world, and that, surely, will attract curious eyeballs.
For IFAB, this is likely to be an interesting proposition. With Ligue 3, uniquely as a professional league, open to experimentation, it should provide an ideal context to run trials of new laws at a high level. Typically, these take place in youth or amateur football before, if successful, being widely adopted; here is an opportunity for it to partner with a league willing to innovate.
A crucible of youth development
Expanding upon the plans further, the idea is for the league to become a crucible of development for young French players.
While Ligue 1 is undoubtedly one of the most prolific breeding grounds for talent anywhere in the world, there is a desire to offer young stars even more opportunities at an early age.
“The trend is to cap the number of players in a squad at 20, but we wouldn’t count those under the age of 21,” Strasbourg president Marc Keller, who was a key member of the working group, has explained in L’Equipe.
In order to help clubs reach this quota, loan regulations are set to be loosened. Currently, clubs can only send seven players out on loan domestically, while they can only receive five, including two from any one team.
“Our idea is to relax these quotas, particularly for Ligue 3 club to receive more loan players,” Keller added.
Since the collapse of the TV deals in France, many clubs have been forced to rely on player sales for survival. During the recent January transfer window, for example, Ligue 1 posted nearly €190m worth of sales at a profit of €86m. Such transfers are the lifeblood of several smaller teams, and it is expected that this enhanced youth development pathway will enhance it.
The football of tomorrow
France is positioning itself as having a major role to play in the development of the football of the future with Ligue 3. More than just a survival strategy, it's an idea designed to strengthen the country’s position at the forefront of the game.
Not only could its third professional league shape the laws of the game in the decades ahead, but it also promises to be the breeding ground of the stars of tomorrow.
Ligue 3 is in line to become the most influential league you didn’t know existed.
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