The Girondins de Bordeaux of Gérard Lopez were downgraded to National by the DNCG on Tuesday.
The club will appeal again in early July.
The body asks the club to review its copy on three points: the debt, its repayment priorities and the guarantee of transfer window sales.
To get out of it, the owner and president of Marine et Blanc will have to find a new agreement with his creditors, the American investment funds, Fortress and King Street.
Until the end Gérard Lopez and his teams will have believed it!
To what?
To the fact of simply being notified by the DNCG of one or more measures with regard to the club.
Indeed, the owner and president of the Girondins de Bordeaux did not expect to undergo a "brutal" administrative demotion to National after his hearing before the financial policeman of French football this Tuesday afternoon.
“At the time, everyone was a little surprised, sounded.
Even the rulers of Fortress and King Street.
After that remains investment funds, they will not panic like that, ”reports a witness.
Moreover, the Hispano-Luxembourgish businessman immediately exchanged in the evening with his creditors in order to start new negotiations to review their copy together with a view to appealing.
The club will appeal the decision this Wednesday according to information from
20 Minutes.
The objective being clearly today to very quickly find a new agreement with the two lending funds to reassure everyone and above all to go as quickly as possible before the FFF appeal committee so as not to encroach too much on the start of the sports season.
Until then, the Girondins de Bordeaux will have to find solutions on three very specific points according to several sources within the DNCG.
Reduce the debt (further)
This was one of the big issues in the discussions between Gérard Lopez and the Fortress/King Street duo before this week's meeting.
Eventually, all parties had reached an agreement last weekend to cut the club's debt (52 million euros) in half through a transfer of ownership of part of it to the man's company. business and his associates (Jogo Bonito), with perfect delegation.
That is to say that the Girondins de Bordeaux will never again be accountable for these 26 million euros in debt.
But this agreement signed at the last minute on Monday was simply deemed "insufficient" by the DNCG.
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Basically, the authority asks Gérard Lopez and especially his creditors to reduce it further.
The first having already put their hands in the dough, a thing welcomed by the DNCG in passing, it is now clearly a question of telling the latter to also make an effort on the debt remaining at the expense of the club.
Will they?
By what mechanism?
On this point, it will be above all a showdown between the owner of the club and the Fortress and King Street tandem.
And we do not know at this stage what financial effort the DNCG is asking for.
Tchouaméni and Koundé's money must go to the club
This was the hottest point of this Tuesday's meeting and this is also where Gérard Lopez's teams understood that it would be difficult to obtain the green light from the body from this first hearing.
"We spent more than 40 minutes on this because we wanted to make them understand our wishes", explains a close friend of the DNCG.
This desire is that the money that the Girondins will recover on the profit-sharing of the sales of Aurélien Tchouaméni to Real Madrid (10-11 million euros) and that possible of Jules Koundé (6-7 million euros) goes directly into the club's coffers and is not used to primarily repay the debt and ultimately go primarily into the pockets of Fortress and King Street.
This is what the agreement made by Gérard Lopez for the moment also provides for in recent days.
"It's quite paradoxical but on this one, the DNCG is in a certain way benevolent with the Girondins because it seeks to preserve the rights of the club vis-à-vis these two funds", slips a close friend of the file. .
Will the Americans hear it that way?
Possible.
Gérard Lopez has a simple argument at his disposal, which is to tell Fortress and King Street to give up on this money first to help the club.
As the latter has planned to sell for nearly 40-45 million euros this summer (with the sales of Tchouaméni and Koundé included), this cash would be affected as soon as the club has exceeded the 22 million in sales that it lacks. to balance the budget.
On this point, the DNCG wants above all that the club keep priority over lenders.
The return of the letter of guarantee
She made her big comeback this Tuesday afternoon during the meeting.
The famous letter of guarantee that the Americans have been bringing since 2018 to cover all the financial problems of the club and that they have not signed this time.
The subject is above all back on the table when discussing the sales planned by the club this summer to plug the holes.
The DNCG has also agreed to postpone the deadline for these sales from June 30 to the end of the summer transfer window.
Proof that she also seeks to help the Girondins.
But we mustn't push things too far and that's why today she's asking the club to guarantee its sales by a letter of guarantee from Fortress and King Street or by another mechanism (temporarily putting a certain sum under an escrow account) for the second hearing.
Can it be through official club offers?
Hard to say.
According to information from
20 Minutes,
the Marine et Blanc would, for example, have two offers for two players for a total amount of 19 million euros, but will these remain valid after this Tuesday's decision by the DNCG?
"With this announcement, it will become very complicated to sell, you don't have to have done Saint-Cyr to understand it, so it's difficult to bet on it in view of the call scheduled for early July", recalls a close friend of the club.
The other strategy is related to the previous point, that is to say to leave the money from Tchouaméni to the club, which would lower the obligation to sell this summer to 12 million euros.
Suffice to say that the letter of guarantee should not be difficult to provide for such a “small” sum, even if this time it will be much stricter considering previous seasons.
Perhaps Gérard Lopez could vouch for himself…
“In any case, I had warned everyone, and in particular the investment funds, that without this letter or real guarantees, it would not pass.
In essence, they replied, '' go ahead Gérard like that, we will already see if it can pass and we think so '', but it is very bad to know the DNCG to think like that and I was right , insists a person close to the file.
Now everyone is in a bit of a mess and the funds find themselves stuck, either they help the club by making an effort or the club sinks and they will have to sit on their 52 million euros.
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