Limousin and Poitou-Charentes - the football wilderness

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After the relegation suffered by Niort last season, sports daily l'equipe ran a story today reflecting on the sad state of football in Ligue Centre-Ouest, where for the first time ever, the league has no representation in the top three tiers of French football.

From next season, the league which covers both Limousin and Poitou-Charentes clubs, will be the only one out of 22 football areas without a club in the upper echelons of the French footballing pyramid.

Whilst the Centre-Ouest area has hardly been a football hotbed in the past, it has now sunk to its lowest ebb.  Limoges spent several seasons in the top flight during the late 1950s, whilst Angoulême did the same in the early 1970s.  Last to play in Ligue 1 were Niort during the 1987/88 season.  Niort have featured most prominently in Ligue 2, whilst Poitiers, Limoges, Angoulême and Montmorillon have all played at that level before.

Niort were relegated for the second season running last term, and will ply their trade at amateur level next year, in CFA.  This season has also seen Châtellerault relegated to CFA2, whilst Brive drop from CFA2 into the Division d'Honneur.  The fate is worse for Angoulême-Charente FC, who will start next season in the departmental championship, with 240,000€ of debt to contend with.

Only Poitiers, promoted to CFA2, have provided any success, although Limoges FC have ambitions despite only managing a top 6 finish last year.  Limoges plan to make it into Ligue 2 within 5 years, according to Pierre Mazé, the former president at Grenoble who has just joined the club's committee.  He said "Limoges is the 24^th city of France but the 300^th ranked club, this is not normal."

To support the club's ambitions, the town of Limoges has already declared it plans to improve facilities at the Beaublanc sports complex, raising capacity to 20,000 by 2014.

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