In 1987, Jean-Michel Aulas was 38 years old. Four years earlier, he created Cegid. A former national handball player, he is sponsor of Alain Prost in Formula 1. Nothing predestines him to take an interest in OL. And yet…
“The central point is the association with Bernard Tapie in the Ambitions program on TF1, on a Friday evening,” recalls Jean-Michel Aulas. “I had a really good relationship with Bernard. I only saw the positive things in him, and there were a lot of them. He had spoken to me about football, had even taken me to Marseille several times. I had made a final of the Coupe de France with his team, lost against Bordeaux. We had gone green in Marcoussis. And without him telling me, he leaves the evening of the show to a journalist from the Progress “I know a young industrialist in Lyon who would make a good president for OL”. Behind, Progress actually tons. This is the trigger”.
“I found myself at an assembly to become a sponsor, and it drifted”
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