“The club would probably have been in a state of insolvency at the beginning of January, which means that there was a problem with the continuity of the activity and for the teams. “ This sentence, one of the first pronounced by the new president, Olivier Létang, at a press conference on December 21, 2020, immediately answered questions about the timing of the change of owner at the head of LOSC.
Five months later, when Lille is ninety minutes away from winning the title of champion of France after their draw against Saint-Etienne, Sunday May 16 (0-0), the assertion has not lost of its weight. She recalls that, if the sporting success of the season may have prevented the ship from sinking, the financial problem remains. Despite the millions that will accompany qualification for the next Champions League, the club can not keep the same lifestyle.
That he was able to maintain it so far is already a small miracle, closely linked to the results of the first months. When Gérard Lopez is forced to leave the presidency on December 18, 2020, Lille leads Ligue 1 ahead of PSG and has just passed the group stage of the Europa League. The workforce is young – less than 25 years on average – and its best elements are followed by a good part of Europe.
Among the seventeen players who belong to LOSC but are on loan, some are also starting to assert themselves. “The positive side is that we have quality players, assets”, considers Létang, juggling, in the subjects as in the vocabulary, between sporting and economic.
A strong gesture
New owner, Merlyn Partners injects 50 million euros urgently and does not sell any player in the January transfer window. A strong gesture, linked as much to the health situation as to the ranking of the team. Coming to the rescue in a financially complicated period, the investment fund has no chance of making the repurchase profitable by immediately separating from its best elements.
Especially not in the context of collective savings of a sport which is losing a lot of money playing in empty stadiums (no transfer reached 25 million euros in January). He must therefore see in the medium term, do not change anything, hoping that the results are maintained and then, once the season is over, normalize the management of the club after four years in the breach.
Maintained by miracle during the first season under the presidency of Gérard Lopez, Lille did not leave the top 4 during the following three. But the trip was not easy. Never fully convinced by the economic model, the DNCG, the financial policeman of French football, has released several yellow cards: budget retoked in the summer of 2017, recruitment ban in January 2018 then relegation as a precaution finally lifted; supervision of transfers and salaries in the summer of 2018; fine of 50,000 euros for incorrect information in May 2019.
Events to which we must in particular add a late validation of the accounts in July 2020 as well as an ongoing procedure with Marcelo Bielsa before the Lille industrial tribunal. The former coach of the Mastiffs, dismissed for serious misconduct almost four years ago, denounced harassment aimed at pushing him to resign and claims 19 million euros. Judgment is expected on July 2.
Low cost nuggets
Lille’s economic model, based on assumed trading, seemed to work: each season, the northern club sold two or three of its best players very dearly, which it replaced with nuggets unearthed at low cost by Luis Campos. The quality of the workforce did not come out of it weakened, but the transfer balances, clearly positive – Nicolas Pépé and Victor Osimhen, for example, became the two most expensive African players in history – did not prevent the worries. financial.
Laurent Blanc is in pole position to train the team if Christophe Galtier leaves, which many people no longer doubt internally.
The closed session and the withdrawal of Mediapro did not help, “But there was a deeper problem”, assures Létang, discreet since his first speech. Advisor to President Lopez – therefore unofficial sporting director – under the rare status of service provider, Campos has built the entire workforce that is heading for the title. The new management, however, signified the immediate end of the collaboration, distanced itself from the clubs of Mouscron (Belgium) and Boavista (Portugal), with which partnership agreements had been made, and gradually built a more traditional recruitment unit. .
A change of era that won the press secretary Florian Fieschi, considered too close to the Portuguese, and is found in all strata. History of the club, Jean-Michel Vandamme returned to drive the training – Lille was 24e the latest classification of approved centers established by the French Football Federation. Alongside in Rennes, Sylvain Armand (sports coordinator) and Didier Roudet (deputy general manager) have taken up their functions in recent weeks. Adrien Tarascon (player and data analyst), known from PSG, also arrived. Laurent Blanc is in pole position to train the team if Christophe Galtier leaves, which many people have no doubts about internally.
Savings to be made
The CVs of newcomers are prestigious, those targeted to expand the staff would not spot either. One question remains: what will be the squad of the club next season? The new owner, the Merlyn Partners fund, has already put its hand in its pocket and is not intended to invest at a loss. However, apart from a few Premier League clubs – English first division – which capitalize on their brand image and colossal TV rights, almost no one earns money over time.
Even less when, like the LOSC, we pay for a stadium that would only be profitable when sold out in each match. Minority shareholder and candidate for a takeover in the mid-2010s, the Belgian Marc Coucke had preferred to invest in his country for lack of finding a business model credible with such a weight to bear. The King Street fund, owner of Bordeaux, preferred a brutal disengagement putting the future of the club in jeopardy to the prospect of continuing to spend.
With 55 players under contract – a good twenty too many – there are savings to be made before even touching the stars of the team. In the event of a satisfactory offer, Mike Maignan, Zeki Celik, Renato Sanches, Boubakary Soumaré, Jonathan Ikoné, Jonathan Bamba and Luiz Araujo should not be blocked. But, for them as for others, in particular the side Domagoj Bradaric, become Croatian international but transparent for several months, nothing guarantees that interested clubs will come forward.
At the end of the contract, the captain, José Fonte, is part of the workforce but renewing a 37-year-old player is not done lightly. As the season comes to its end, Sunday, May 23, there is a feeling of the end of the university career: the last shared moments and the prospect of a big party before everyone follows their own path.