PARIS: French clubs are hoping that their protests over the country’s top-tax rate will reap the benefits after indications that President Francois Hollande is considering varying the anti-austerity-policy.

Hollande has sought to introduce a 75pc upper income tax rate that would have applied to anyone earning beyond €1m per year but the league and clubs had opposed its extension to sport and entertainment on the grounds that top players would move abroad.

Le Parisien has reported a possible change of heart with talks under way to limit the amount employers would have to pay as a result of the tax to a percentage of their overall revenue. LFP officials are understood to be aiming for the ceiling to be set at 2-3pc which would save PSG, for example, some E30m and Marseille and Lyon E10m on their original prospective tax bill.

“We’re waiting for the conclusions of the study group, but it’s true that there are football clubs whose equilibrium is fragile,” France’s Economics Minister Pierre Moscovici told radio station RMC. However, he added: “It will be a general measure. It’s not possible to just make a rule for football clubs.”

League president Frederic Thiriez said: “I think the work we have been fully committed to undertake has borne fruit. The government has understood there is a problem. That’s the positive side of things. But as long as there is no definitive position from the government, I will remain extremely cautious.”