Finances, supporters, future… Girondins on the brink of implosion

• Already in great financial difficulty, the Girondins will still see their debt increase with the Covid-19 crisis (13-14 million euros) and the economic model does not work.
• The conflict between supporters and club management reached a new milestone last week as the mayor "calls for accounts". The situation becomes untenable for Frédéric Longuépée, the CEO of the club.
• If King Street still does not seem ready to sell in the short term, the American investment fund will have to find a solution to get out of this crisis. Can he appoint a new directorate?

They dig, they dig. And unfortunately, the Girondins de Bordeaux still do not hit rock bottom. Ligue 1 may have closed its doors a few weeks ago with for the club a very sad 12th place, the Navy and White have been plunged for several months now in a serious institutional crisis against the backdrop of a worrying economic situation. Perhaps the worst in club history.

Critics focus on the management of the club with six titles of champion of France by its owner, the American investment fund King Street. The latter ended his hitching with another fund, GACP, last November due to a calamitous management of the FCGB by it since the takeover in 2018. Between the lack of sports investment, the anger of supporters and the deafening silence of an owner whose face we don't even know, the Girondins de Bordeaux are today on the verge of implosion.

An untenable economic model

The most alarming is surely the economic situation of the club. It results from a buyout made with loans and not equity. The debts are very large and oblige for example Bordeaux (like other French clubs), under pressure from the DNCG (national direction of management control), to regularly sell for two years its best players like Jules Koundé in Seville (25M) or Aurélien Tchouaméni (18M) in Monaco. Well sold but sold! This money is obviously not reinvested to the great despair of the supporters but also of the coach of this team, Paulo Sousa.

Girondins de Bordeaux: "Don't worry" ... Is the club really in danger? https://t.co/PjAf3IPXAe via @ 20minutesBord pic.twitter.com/MNikHMoPmB

But in Bordeaux, this is not enough to keep the accounts in balance. For many years, the Girondins have indeed had to deal with a substantial structural deficit, 25 million euros last season. If before the takeover of the M6 ​​club plugged the hole (nearly 180 million euros in losses in 19 years), this is no longer the case with King Street. Today, deficits are piling up, with a sharply increasing wage bill (11 million euros) and interest to be paid to shareholders every year. And as if all that was not enough, the health crisis went through there. A fatal blow for the club?

For that, it will be necessary to wait for the passage in front of the DNCG. But despite the salary agreement made with the players and the staff, the partial unemployment or the loan from the Professional Football League (LFP) to cover TV rights, the losses linked to the Covid-19 already amount at 13-14 million euros according to information from 20 Minutes.  All this put together, the leaders could present in the coming weeks a negative balance sheet of more than 50 million euros. Double that of a year ago.

Supporters set fire to Haillan castle

In the Girondins, the crisis is not just a matter of numbers. It is much deeper with a deleterious climate around the club and a damaged French football institution. It has its source for months in the conflict between the management of the club and the Ultramarines. The largest group of supporters denounces the absence of a sports project, the only mercantile vision of the leaders in place and therefore demands the resignation of the CEO of Girondins, Frédéric Longuépée, and of his director "stadium and networks commercial strategy" Antony Thiodet since the ticketing business. Banners, #KingStreetOut movement on social networks, demonstrations in Haillan or even a temporary stop to a match (Nîmes, December 3) marked the Bordeaux season.

Girondins de Bordeaux: "It's a scandal", did the club push its supporters to buy more expensive seats? https://t.co/rOmhhzhI6F via @ 20minutesBord pic.twitter.com/9QBnhG1Y2x

But the open divide between the two sides became wide open last week with the publication by the Ultramarines of what they call the "Girondins Leaks". These are recordings made without the knowledge of the two Bordeaux leaders during meetings with certain supporters and published on social networks in order to "inform supporters of the Girondins of the true face of those who run them". We especially hear the management attacking the Ultramarines but also the integrity of a journalist or former players. Faced with this situation, Frédéric Longuépée denounced “a bashing orchestrated without real foundation” with the sole aim of “weakening and discrediting the institution of the FCGB” and above all announced in  L'Equipe a filing of complaints against the most loyal supporters of the club. The latter gave him an appointment in court.

And as "the shit, it always flies in a squadron" dixit Jacques Chirac, the Bordeaux management must also face internal problems. Tensions are growing at the level of sports management between the new team installed by Eduardo Macia, the director of Football, and the old led by Ulrich Ramé, one of his relatives, the agent Raquel Herraiz Del Morale and ex-scouts or agents who have lost their prerogatives at the club. Two agents claim to have been cheated during transfers in recent months. One threatens to sue club officials while the other has seized FIFA. And the icing on the cake, the manager of the Souleymane Cissé training center has just resigned.

In the midst of all this, Bordeaux coach Paulo Sousa, the only one who still has a little bit of credit with the supporters, observes this situation with sadness from his native Portugal but does not yet plan to leave. Requested by a very large Turkish club last week or by the leaders of the United Arab Emirates Football Federation to train the national team, he did not follow up according to our information because he wants at all costs to continue coaching in one of the five major European championships .

All this context has in any case challenged local politicians. Pierre Hurmic, environmental candidate for municipal elections, said that "the Girondins are a common good, not a speculative product". The mayor Nicolas Florian, him, wishes to receive as quickly as possible the leaders of King Street, and no longer only Frédéric Longuépée, to "hold them to account". To date, an appointment date has not yet been set.

Girondins de Bordeaux: Nicolas Florian “demands accounts” to King Street, the owner of the club https://t.co/bvfRbJbbEc via @ 20minutesBord pic.twitter.com/OhYvvIpa51

What future for the club?

Another meeting, surely much more important, awaits the club: its passage in front of the DNCG (date of hearing to be fixed between June 25 and July 16). The challenge is simple for Pierre Rondeau, sports economist and RMC Sport consultant  : “Basically, it is primarily concerned with the solvency of the accounts and not with profitability at the moment. The club can be in debt year after year but fear nothing if behind, it bailed out (see OM). The risk in Bordeaux is that the investment fund disengages (same thing for Fortress, the other lender at the time of redemption) and that the accounts are no longer solvent. There, it is administrative sanction and relegation ”. King Street (or Fortress) will therefore have to produce a new "comfort letter", that is to say, vouch for the debts like last season to pass the course. It will be done "if necessary", says a close friend of the investment fund.

The option of a sale of the club in the very short term, discussed in recent weeks as in Marseille, would still be ruled out for the moment. The economic context is not very favorable. The objective for King Street remains to quickly garner the new TV rights and to obtain the exploitation of the Matmut Atlantique to promote the club for resale.

A potential buyer has already positioned himself by sending a letter of intent but Bruno Fievet, business manager supported by French, Swiss and even Saudi investors, has unofficially received a dismissal. Other investors inquire because even if some have been cooled in recent days by the striking power of the Ultramarines and the tarnished image of the FCGB, the Girondins remain a club which attracts, like the many candidates at the time when M6 was a seller (Fosun and King Power International Group in 2016, Fubon with the Tsaï family in autumn 2017 or Peak6 and Silver Lake in 2018 according to our information).

Health protocol, training ... The Girondins imagine the recovery https://t.co/UNJYGDRF8M

However, internally, it will be complicated to continue in this context in the short term. Does Frédéric Longuépée plan to resign? " No ! “Responds dryly one of his relatives to 20 Minutes. Can King Street appoint a new branch? Impossible to say today. But a recent appointment to the board of directors is intriguing. That of Jean-Charles Cazes. Director of the prestigious Lynch Bages wine estate in Pauillac and lover of the Girondins, he is historically linked to the club through his family (one of the 500 largest fortunes in France according to Challenges) since his father was himself a director in the 90s Above all, Jean-Charles Cazes is a direct acquaintance of the American billionaire Brian Higgins (fortune estimated at 1.6 billion dollars according to Forbes), co-founder of King Street. This Bordeaux citizen also accepted this appointment out of friendship for the latter.

Can it play a bigger role? Does he want to? Does the American investment fund wish to install a more local figure in the organization chart? For the moment, there is nothing to confirm this. If Jean-Charles Cazes has participated in only one board of directors for the moment, this proves that King Street follows all this much more closely than some people think. The Ultramarines, they expect the owner to assume his financial responsibilities and place at the head of the club competent people attached to the FCGB to be able to resume a more peaceful dialogue. And it might be time if the Girondins do not want the hole they dig to turn into a grave!

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