started at the beginning of the 2010s, the wave of buyouts of French clubs by investment funds and foreign billionaires increased, arousing hopes and concerns.
by
A page turns. With the sale of Olympique Lyonnais (OL) to the American businessman John Textor, a time of French football tends to disappear. The one where club owners were embodied in local business owners, strong personalities who found in this sport a media exhibition that their activities could not have provided them.
In Lyon, Jean -Michel Aulas chaired OL since 1987. If he does not fully pass his hand -he should remain president three years -, his “step aside” illustrates what has become football these last years: a globalized and financialized industry. With the consequence of accelerating club times.
In Europe, this was sensitive from spring 2020, in full pandemic, as the European Union of Football Associations (UEFA) noted in its latest annual report, published in February. The body underlined the preponderant share of American investors, and designated France as the country where these buyouts were the most numerous.
Besides OL, Angers SCO is also about being sold to an American investment fund. And a sale of Saint-Etienne is announced by its current owners, Bernard Caïazzo and Roland Romeyer. Next season, more than half of Ligue 1 clubs, the elite championship, will beat Foreign Pavilion.
“Moderate entry ticket”
The movement, which began in the early 2010s with PSG and AS Monaco, accentuated before the double COVID-MEDIAPRO crisis. In August 2019, the director general of the Professional Football League (LFP), Didier Quillot, spoke of an “investment momentum”. Optimism was then rigorous, with the sharp rise in 2020-2024 television broadcasting rights of the championship, acquired by Mediapp.
The failure of the Spanish audiovisual group and Covid’s epidemic threw a cold, the president of the National Directorate of Management Control (DNCG) Jean-Marc Mickeler announcing, in 2021, that “the worst [was] to Come “for” financially exsangues “clubs.
But today, the president of the LFP Vincent Labrune wants to believe in “a real new start”, as he declared to the Echos on May 6. In particular thanks to the creation of a commercial company including the Luxembourg fund CVC Capital Partners took 13 % of the shares. The agreement makes it possible to immediately inject 1.5 billion euros into the accounts of professional clubs.
The League, which did not wish to comment on the wave of buyouts, sticks to greet it as a “good news which attests to the attractiveness of Ligue 1”. This is not enough to explain the interest of foreign investment funds and billionaires. The modicity of the entry ticket contributes first: “The valuation of French clubs, PSG and OL apart, is much lower than that of the clubs of the great European championships”, estimates Bastien Drut, economist and author of Mercato, Football economy at 21 e century.
You have 68.04% of this article to read. The continuation is reserved for subscribers.