French football has some way to go to reach the level of La Liga and the Premier League, according to Mathieu Ficot.
The Director of Economic Development for the LFP believes that to judge the strength of a league you must look at the number of stars, something which Ligue 1 cannot currently compete in.
Explaining his comparisons, Ficot told Goal: "You look at the big names in the league rather than the overall quality. You look at the top 10 names on the Ballon d'Or shortlist, for example. For that you have to go to Spain or England."
Ficot also insists the national teams have some indication of the strength of the respective top leagues in that country.
"It is also very important to look at the performance of national teams too. The Germans and Spaniards have benefited from that success.
"I believe that we're behind those leagues, but next in line."
The French top tier is also trailing in global audiences, but Ficot insists the country is working hard to change that.
"There is the market logic that penalises us too. Historically, Spain and England have had advantages over us, culturally. In South America, they speak Spanish so they will watch La Liga.
"In the United States, they will look at the Premier League. It may be delayed compared to that. Now we have a real challenge in deploying the league internationally.
He added: "It's not so difficult to compete, there is an attraction for French football abroad, but we suffer a bit with the competition between leagues.
"The performances of French clubs are not the true level of French football today. I cannot accept being behind the Swiss, Belgians, Portuguese or Russians.
"We have a league that is extremely dense, with extremely strong competition and the clubs that play in Europe are struggling to be competitive each week in both continental competitions and in the French championship.
"The Spanish league is not as dense as ours, for example. There four or five teams that stand out, then there is a gap with the rest, which is not the case for us."
Despite hosting the likes of Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Edinson Cavani and Thiago Silva in recent years, Ficot believes that French football must add more quality in order to grow interest.
"We must improve the product," he said. "We are currently finalising an archive database to offer anything other than simple games to our broadcasters. We want to allow them to tell stories, to show the history of our league.
"We are also considering opening offices abroad, but it is a bit complicated, because it requires large investments. It would be offices for public relations.
"The English started this work almost 15 years ago. It is late, but we want to do it too."
A larger audience naturally correlates with financial success from commercial products, another area Ficot is striving to improve.
"We have the digital marketplace then, just behind, there is the e-commerce and merchandising," he added. "Our role is also to ensure that the clubs manage to sell jerseys worldwide.
"We must ensure that the favorite team of more Chinese people is PSG, Lyon, Marseille or Monaco."
..... - Goal