Cyrille de la Morinerie, edited by Gauthier Delomez / Photo credits: Thibaud MORITZ / AFP 06:52, July 24, 2024, modified at 08:40, July 24, 2024
It’s a long agony for this monument of French football. After being relegated to Ligue 2, the Girondins de Bordeaux will start again at best in the 3rd division next season. The Bordeaux leaders have not managed to reach an agreement with a potential buyer, the American group Fenways Sports, owner of the English club Liverpool. Today, they are missing 40 million euros to clean up the accounts.
Bordeaux supporters disappointed
Bordeaux is therefore relegated to the National, something never seen before in the history of this club that is over a century old. Orlando, a Girondins supporter for over 40 years, is dejected: “We are all dejected but it’s better to start from scratch. It’s easier than struggling in Ligue 2. Many supporters of other big clubs like Lille and Saint-Étienne are giving us their support and that warms the heart. I hope we will move up and return to Ligue 1.”
Alain Giresse speaks of “great sadness”
Since the sale of the Girondins by M6 six years ago, this legendary club, six times champion of France where Zinedine Zidane, Jean Tigana, and Bixente Lizarazu have shone, has been in great pain. Bordeaux had been languishing in Ligue 2 for two seasons, far from the natural ambitions of such an important club.
A decline that is very painful for the legendary and Europe 1 consultant Alain Giresse, who played 520 matches with the navy and white jersey. “It was a slow and gentle descent into hell. To tell myself that this club is going to be wiped off the map and start from scratch… No! Like many Girondins fans that I speak to on the phone regularly, we remain hopeful of a better future for the club,” he shares.
At best, the 3rd division, at worst, the death of the club.
But the Bordeaux club, which is insolvent, is far from being saved. It will first have to convince the National Management Control Directorate that it has the financial strength to return to the 3rd division, which is not at all obvious when you look at the accounts that have been in the red for many months.
Owner Gérard Lopes, who has invested several tens of millions of euros of his own money, has no intention, for the moment, of putting the money back into the pot and has been prioritizing the sale for some time. Consequently, the Girondins should turn to the commercial court in the hope of a judicial recovery rather than a pure and simple liquidation, synonymous with the death of the club.
