Ambrosie’s quest for world domination hits France

Another day, another deal.

The Canadian Football League on Tuesday announced that commissioner Randy Ambrosie had reached an agreement with the French American Football Federation (FAFF) to work together on growing the game.

“This is the perfect extension of everything we are working to accomplish with our CFL 2.0 strategy,” Ambrosie said in a release.

“On every point, we found common ground, a shared drive to grow the game of football.”

Like a previous agreement signed with the German Football League, this deal proposes to send a select group of French players to a CFL combine in Toronto in March, and will create opportunities for Canadian players to play pro ball in France. There will also be initiatives to facilitate coaching exchanges and work on the development of officials.

The two parties will also seek a broadcast/streaming deal to show CFL games and first-division French games in France.

“We have had a strong link with Canada for the past 15 years,” said Tristan Genet, chief financial officer for the FAFF.

That’s most evident in Quebec, where there are more than 100 players from France on teams in CEGEP, the province’s pre-university and technical college system; as well as several more on U Sports teams in that province.

“We are agreeing here to take this existing infrastructure and really build on it,” Ambrosie said in the release.

The FAFF includes 15,000 football players and a first-division league of 12 teams. It oversees 300 affiliated tackle football, flag football and cheerleading associations. France’s national team is the reigning European champion.