Olivier Létang will replace Gérard Lopez in Lille.
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SICCOLI PATRICK / SIPA
Olivier Létang will replace Gérard Lopez as deputy chairman of Losc.
Respected for his enormous work force and his ability to professionalize all the clubs he has been to, the former Reims player can also be divisive.
His (short) stint in an agent company has sometimes blurred the tracks on the real interests defended by the former president of Rennes.
There are destinies that play out very little.
That of Olivier Létang was tied, or rather untied, during a seminar of the executive committee of the League at the beginning of the years 2010. Small practical workshops at the Stade de France, and Leonardo, the star of the assembly who falls into the group led by the CEO of the Reims stadium.
The moment of a lifetime for the former number 10, who ended up taking care of everything in Champagne after his evening classes at Essec.
Amazed by the boy's presentation, the Parisian sports director brought him into the Parisian sheepfold in the summer of 2012. Olivier Létang is a man who does not let opportunities slip by.
"It's the best of L1"
His name has circulated everywhere since leaving Brittany at the start of the year, but the former president of Stade Rennais was waiting for the right project to put it to the bottom.
A confusing return to Lille, in the luggage of the Luxembourg investment fund Merlyn Partners.
Comment from Gervais Martel, the tutelary figure of the Lensois rival: “He knows all the cogs, whether it is on training, the pros or the management of a club.
If tomorrow I were a club shareholder, I would certainly take Olivier Létang.
It's the best ".
It's the best: a qualifier that has often accompanied Létang's career since we saw him make a career from afar.
🗣️Galtier: "I had Gérard Lopez, my president, yesterday, long in the evening, I spoke with him. It was a difficult moment on a human level, very difficult, then I had a call from 'Olivier Létang late in the evening to explain the situation. "
(@telefoot_chaine) pic.twitter.com/BEiIxeFB1c
- Goal France 🇫🇷 (@GoalFrance) December 16, 2020
Rennes passed a milestone with him
In Rennes, since it is the most recent, we recognize him without muffling having transcended a club used to the sweet life of patachon.
"He will forever be the president who finally brought the culture of winning to Stade Rennais, to get the club out of the soft belly," Gaël Corguillet, the former spokesperson for the Socios de Rennes, suggests.
For that, I will be eternally grateful to him.
»A sum of adjectives to define Manceau's almost addictive relationship to performance?
Professionalism, high standards, work.
A lot of work.
"The hardest worker of L1 leaders," blows an acquaintance.
An anecdote like any other told by
Ouest France
: official lunch with the Arsenal delegation at the restaurant, and Raoul Sanllehi, the London sports director who is offered his favorite bottle of wine as if Létang had known him from high school.
We only know Jean-Michel Aulas to work so much on his files upstream.
Such attention to detail goes rather badly with mediocrity.
At La Piverdière, a certain number of employees do not support the managerial methods of this father, he seems charming in private, but who does not deny "a lack of warmth at first", in the
JDD.
No one discusses the many successes, but morning WhatsApps, broken emails, and frenetic activity weigh in in the long run.
Like the clan atmosphere.
Létang likes those who are on the same wavelength as him.
The others just have to go.
“He has this 'you are with me or against me' side, deplores a colleague who knows him well.
He did a remarkable job, but doubt quickly settled on the expiry date of his management methods.
"
A manager who is too demanding in the long term?
The José Mourinho of presidents?
Pinault father and son have sometimes felt rushed by Létang's ambitions.
"For example, when he publicly puts pressure on the town hall for the extension of the training center, it is difficult to pass", deciphers an actor in local life.
However, it is not his mad horse's eagerness that ends up costing him his place, rather his trench warfare with Julien Stéphan.
The official rumor evokes systematic interference even in certain choices of the staff.
The unofficial rumor favors a questionable mix of genres in the management of transfers, a bit like Labrune in his time at OM.
“Létang has loved it since PSG, when he started to close
big-name
deals
, like Di Maria,” said a source from Reims.
It was there that he began to build his network and get closer to world-class agents like Mino Raiola ”.
Touch.
Létang, very close to some players in his Parisian era, likes to repeat that he has Zlatan Ibrahimovic's ear or that Pep Guardiola is texting him.
"He is capable of taking Le Losc one step further," recognizes Martel.
He has quite an impressive knowledge of networks and international football.
What is the problem, you will say?
Létang is also one of the very few high-level leaders to have passed to the other side.
Six months at Sport Invest, the team of agents founded by unmistakable Kia Joorabchian, between PSG and Rennes.
Olivier Létang with Carlo Ancelotti at the Parc des Princes.
- FRANCK FIFE / AFP
A double hat that is sometimes disturbing
This collaboration, certainly ephemeral, leaves a shadow hanging over Létang.
Is he the president concerned with the interests of the club or the Trojan horse of various more or less well-meaning agents?
His name was recently associated with the choice of Eduardo Camavinga to separate from his historical agent Moussa Sissoko, to join the English of Stellar Groupe.
A leak maybe orchestrated by the person himself.
Létang likes journalists, who generally do it well enough.
However, a certain number should be wondering about the exact role of Olivier Létang in the coming months, while the former "owner" of the Lille debt, the Elliott investment fund, will quickly claim his due.
Between 100 and 150 million euros, according to various estimates.
Clearly, did he come to slash the workforce by taking advantage of his connections with certain agent companies, up to discreetly pushing the players to change dairy and encroach on the territory of Christophe Galtier?
The latter, already disillusioned by the departure of Campos, ensures that there was no question of transfer window during the first telephone contact between the two men, before the victory in Dijon.
Treacherous remark from our Rennes supporter: “I am curious to see his relationship with Galtier.
I don't even see the coach holding on until June given the character of the two men.
We take the bets.
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