Why the interminable record of the sale of the club poisons ASSE

• After having considered selling ASSE in 2018 to the American investor Peak6, the Roland Romeyer-Bernard Caïazzo tandem clearly announced its desire to hand over last April.

• However, nothing has materially changed for seven months at the level of the management of a club in the grip of financial fragility, despite the passage Thursday without measure against it, on the part of the DNCG.

• Impatient to open a new page, the Saint-Etienne supporters are preparing to challenge PSG on Sunday (1 p.m.) in a Cauldron in a closed-door format.

A 68-meter lob from Wahbi Khazri, a

from Saïdou Sow to finally win a match against Clermont (3-2 on November 7), and a tweet from the club announcing Thursday that the DNCG was not pronouncing "any measure against of ASSE ”. The good times can be counted on the fingers of one hand this season for Saint-Etienne supporters, and the latest was able (a little) to reassure them about the survival of the club. Always relegated (19th) before challenging PSG on Sunday (1 p.m.), the Greens have indeed been playing with fire for several months, according to Xavier Thuilot.

"I was there when Wesley Fofana left [in October 2020 in Leicester for 35 million euros] and it was not planned, said last month on the site

the former general manager of the club.

But five days before the end of the transfer window, we learn that Mediapro's October deadline has not been paid.

So there, it is no longer a question of emotion, of sport… Is it how we pay the employees of the club until June 30, 2021, whatever their profession?

Without the sale of Fofana, the club would have disappeared.

It was impossible otherwise.

"

Seven months later, nothing very concrete about a resumption of the club

If the hearing with the National Management Control Department (DNCG) did not reveal anything alarming Thursday, almost all of ASSE's followers have had one main wish for many years: to see Roland Romeyer (76 years old) ) and Bernard Caïazzo (67 years old) take over, after 17 seasons at the head of the club. This change of direction was already in tune with the times in May 2018, when Sainté formalized “exclusive negotiations” with the American investor Peak6. The two presidents then aimed a sale of "at least 80 million euros".

It had flipped, and despite a track from the United Arab Emirates and mentioned on the front page of

in September 2018, it was dead calm until April 13, 2021. That day, Roland Romeyer and Bernard Caïazzo announced that they had entrusted an investment bank with "the mission of selecting the best investor".

Why has nothing really changed about a sale of the club for seven months and this official announcement?

"Ligue 1 suffers from a bad reputation"

“Overall, Ligue 1 suffers from a bad reputation, between the Mediapro file, the premature end of the 2019-2020 financial year due to the Covid-19, the uncertainty regarding the valuation of TV rights and the he increase in overflows in the stadiums this season, first mentions the sports economist Pierre Rondeau.

For all these reasons, if an investor has to bet somewhere today, it may not be in France.

"

Add to this the specificity of Saint-Etienne, which clearly cannot reassure many people about a presence in Ligue 1 next summer, in view of a disastrous start to the championship, and despite an ongoing series of first two consecutive successes.

"We are sending a negative signal to potential investors"

"The paradox is that this club has a history [10 French league titles] and that it is healthy in terms of its financial structures," says Pierre Rondeau. In 2019-2020, all of its assets were valued at 93 million euros and this amount has not been able to be divided by three since. There could therefore quite be investors ready to put 20 or 30 M € to buy the club. "Nevertheless, the consulting firm KPMG transmitted the result of the analysis of the takeover applications and that" the legal and financial guarantees provided by the candidates are insufficient ", according to a press release provided on Tuesday by the club shareholders. This assumed transparency alone surprises Pierre Rondeau.

By communicating that there is a delay on the sale project, I find that we are sending a negative signal to potential investors. There are perverse effects: it leads to believe that the club is not serious enough to really interest candidates. We can tell ourselves that there is a wolf in the project, as when the advertisement of a house for sale remains for three years on Le Bon Coin. These negotiations usually take place behind the scenes, as in Newcastle where the sale was suddenly announced by the club. "

That day still seems a long way off in Sainté, even if new applications will now be studied by KPMG, according to Tuesday's press release. The situation had for example accelerated last summer concerning the resumption of the Girondins de Bordeaux mounted by Gérard Lopez, but that is explained by "the risks of bankruptcy" which were imminent in Gironde. Nothing suggests that it will happen like this for the launch of the 2022-2023 season, for which Claude Puel will no longer be under contract on the bench. Unsurprisingly, the kops reacted to this umpteenth shift in the club's sale record, with brutal banners left Thursday at the training center and in front of the Cauldron.

After a small truce, two banners targeting shareholders were tabled this Thursday afternoon.

The first ahead of Geoffroy Guichard, the second at the Etrat training center!

Via @@ VertsEnColere pic.twitter.com/PrtbyI1HmP

- Sainté Inside (@SainteInside) November 25, 2021

“With our two presidents who never agree, it's complicated, sighs Sylvie, supporter of ASSE since 1975, and a subscriber to the Geoffroy-Guichard stadium even though she lives in Toulouse.

We've been talking about this sale for so long that I don't really believe it anymore.

“A jaded posture that corresponds well to the green people, far from being scoured on the networks about the sale of the club as the Marseillais can do.

For Sylvie, the switch to

is not new in the Forez.

"If there is a sale, we really need a break with this direction"

"We missed the turn in 2013, when we should have grown up after the Coupe de la Ligue won, regrets the 55-year-old member of the North Kop, who will therefore not attend the shock against PSG because of the partial closed session . And since the departure of Christophe Galtier [in 2017], it is the stampede. Like so many green jersey addicts, Sylvie is aware that the possible opening of a new era will not be a guarantee of better sporting success.

“The American example in Bordeaux has really cooled us off,” she admits.

We will have to be vigilant not to lose our identity.

I am particularly afraid of cronyism with the current leaders in the event of a successful local project.

If there is a sell, there really has to be a break with that direction.

One thing has been certain for a while: we are fooling ourselves and recruiting nothing.

So if ASSE is not sold, we will end up killing the club.

This snake of the sea that has become the non-sale of the club clearly does not help the serenity of a group in the hard.

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• Soccer

• League 1

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• Saint Etienne

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