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‘Tens of millions of Euros have gone up in smoke, say Roland Garros due to new coronavirus resrictions


Officials at Roland Garros have warned the new restrictions placed on the French Open has seen ‘tens of millions of Euros go up in smoke.’

Original plans had 20,000 spectators per day coming into Roland Garros to watch the tournament, but that was later stripped back to 11,500.

Even that proved too ambitious, though, and they had to revise their plans again to just 5,000 per day.

However, just days before the tournament a coronavirus spike saw the French government place a 1,000 person limit on the tournament.

“We deeply regret these new restrictions,” FFT president Bernard Giudicelli said.

“5,000 spectators daily in the stadium was already in our eyes a minimum”.

Central to the anger is unquestionably the financial loss, with officials painting a worrying picture.

“We are in the process of quantifying but tens of millions of euros have gone up in smoke,” admitted FFT marketing boss Stephane Morel.

“The hospitality services have been completely removed.”

Wimbledon were facing even worse losses when they cancelled altogether earlier this year, but their insurance policy covered pandemics meaning they didn’t lose out at all.


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Michael Graham, Tennishead.net Editor, has been a professional sports journalist for his whole career and is especially passionate about tennis. He's been the Editor of Tennishead.net for over 5 years and loves watching live tennis by visiting as many tournaments as possible. Michael specialises in writing in-depth features about the ATP & WTA tours.