Jun.15 – Girondins de Bordeaux have been relegated to the French Third Division due to financial problems following a decision by French football financial watchdog DNCG.
Bordeaux immediately appealed the DNCG’s decision, but as it stands, the club will start next season in the National Championship. The club had already been relegated to Ligue 2 this season after conceding 91 goals in the 2021-22 campaign.
This is not the first time that the DNCG has relegated the Bordeaux club. Last season, the watchdog sent the club to Ligue 2, but Bordeaux won the appeal and remained in the top flight.
Gérard Lopez took over. The businessmen and former owner of Lille have drawn up a business plan to convince the French financial policeman DNCG to reverse its decision to relegate the club from the elite.
Before Lopez’s arrival, the club had been placed under the control of a local commercial court following the decision of King Street, which succeeded M6 as the club’s majority shareholder in a 70 million euros in 2018, to withdraw funding from the club. King Street invested 46 million euros in Bordeaux, but no longer “wanted to support the club and finance its current and future needs”. Lopez emerged as a new savior even as losses reached 80 million euros.
However, this time Lopez failed to convince the DNCG of his intention to make Bordeaux financially sounder. French outlet Sud Ouest says Lopez’s plan over the past few weeks had been to bring in €10m from his company Jogo Bonito while also transferring responsibility for half the debt, or €26m. , to the company.
Lopez’s football record is hardly exemplary, however, with his departure to Lille and Mouscron, where he had stakes, leaving both clubs in complete disarray. His name and one of his companies appeared in the Panama Papers and Football Leaks. Why the DNCG allowed Lopez to take control of Bordeaux in the first place remains a mystery.
Bordeaux won six Ligue 1 titles and made the UEFA Cup final in 1996. The club also reached the Champions League quarter-finals in 2009-10.
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