At Jean-Bouin, where Paris FC opened their season with a 2-0 win over Nantes on 6 September, Butagaz mascot Bob had already made an appearance before a wider commitment to women’s football was confirmed the following day.
The Ligue 1 news
The Ligue Féminine de Football Professionnel has added MGEN and Butagaz éco-énergie as partners on three-year agreements running until 2029. The deals take the LFFP’s partner total to six and are intended to support both commercial growth and projects linked to participation in women’s sport.
MGEN becomes the LFFP’s first major partner. Its campaign will focus on the number of teenage girls who stop taking part in sport: 45.2% leave before the age of 15, a rate six times higher than that of boys.
The partnership will seek to encourage girls to stay involved in football by putting visible role models in front of them. A new player-of-the-match award, presented after every league fixture, has been created as part of that approach.
Clotilde Truffaut, MGEN’s national delegate for social commitments, said the expansion of women’s football among licensed players and clubs could amplify the organisation’s message and help shift attitudes.
Butagaz éco-énergie also arrives with experience in women’s professional sport, having already served as naming partner of the women’s professional handball league. General director Aurélien Barbé described the move into football as a logical extension, citing ambition, commitment and proximity as shared principles.
The two agreements are expected to generate around €4 million across their three-year terms, although the LFFP did not publish financial details. The income is set to help fund VAR, which has been introduced in the championship this season.
Paul-Hervé Douillard, the LFFP’s general director, said the organisation had built a commercial strategy specifically for professional women’s football alongside the French Football Federation’s marketing department and the agency 17 Sports. The aim, he said, is to work with brands seeking exposure while also understanding the social issues and challenges specific to the women’s game.
The LFFP has met the commercial targets set in its roadmap with the federation so far, but it is still pursuing further partners and wants to increase partnership revenues again next season.
