Girondins de Bordeaux
Six-time French champions in disarray
The year is 2009. Bordeaux are managed by one of France’s greatest ever players, Laurent Blanc, while upcoming superstars Yoann Gourcuff and Marouane Chamakh are tearing through Ligue 1 with the club’s first French league title in ten years in sight. With over 25,000 fans coming to the Stade Chaban-Delmas every week, the city is at one with the club, and a 42,000-seater new stadium is in the offing. Bordeaux look well on their way to dominating French football at a time when Paris Saint-Germain’s billionaire Qatari owners are yet to arrive in the capital.
Fast-forward to today, and Bordeaux is a club in disarray. Just like Arsenal and Manchester United, fans have been protesting vociferously against American owners. Yet while the two Premier League giants are still in good enough shape to reach the latter stages of the Europa League, things are much bleaker for Bordeaux.
For 19 years, Bordeaux’s owners were French terrestrial TV channel M6. But in November 2018, the club was sold to two American investment firms, General American Capital Partners (GACP) and King Street Capital, for a tidy €100 million. President of GACP and minority shareholder Joe da Grosa was put in place to run the club and appointed ex-PSG director Frederic Longuepee as his chairman. Fans were excited as major investment was promised in a project designed to get Bordeaux back into the Champions League.
The new owners’ first transfer window in January 2019 saw promising youngsters Yacine Adli and Josh Maja brought in from PSG and Sunderland respectively. In March, respected Portuguese coach Paulo Sousa took charge, replacing Brazilian Ricardo Gomes, while Leicester City’s former head of recruitment Eduardo
Defender Laurent Koscielny came in from Arsenal for £5m…but it soon emerged that Sousa neither wanted nor sanctioned the deal
Macia became sporting director. Despite all of this, though, the 2018-19 season proved to be a major disappointment as the Girondins finished in an unimpressive 14th place.
Barely a year after buying the club, in December 2019 the two ownership firms clashed. King Street were flabbergasted by GACP’s day-to-day running of the club. A €35m debt had been racked up, due in large part to an €11m increase to the club’s payroll. King Street managed to oust GACP, purchasing their 13 per cent share while also moving Frederic Longuepee to a more prominent role as CEO.
Yet the 2019-20 season proved another disappointment, with Bordeaux finishing 12th – a world away from their Champions League ambitions. By this time, Girondins’ supporters group the Ultramarines had had enough of King Street, and
Longuepee in particular. In June 2,000 fans gathered to demand the board’s departure, with the
slogan gaining traction thanks to support from ex-players including Lilian Laslandes and Bixente Lizarazu. The latter said: “The club’s situation is alarming, and its management is poor.” To make matters worse, after the fans plastered the city with wanted posters for Longuepee – including a dig at his exorbitant €40,000 monthly salary – the president threatened to sue the supporters group.
That summer there was more upheaval as Macia and Paulo Sousa both left the club after disputes with Longuepee. Sousa was angry with
the board for a lack of new signings. Defender Laurent Koscielny came in from Arsenal for £5m, supposedly to show the club’s ambition, but it soon emerged that Sousa neither wanted nor sanctioned the deal.
Alain Roche, a former Bordeaux player who’d also previously acted as the club’s CEO, came in as sporting director, while Jean-Louis Gasset – Laurent Blanc’s assistant during the 2008-09 title-winning season – was appointed manager. These were populist decisions designed to get disgruntled fans back onside, but once more things turned sour. Roche’s impact appeared to be minimal, and fans believed he was nothing more than a puppet of the board. On the pitch, the 2020-21 season was a disaster, with Bordeaux dragged into a relegation dogfight, which doesn’t bode well for Gasset’s future.
And that’s not all. In April, King Street announced they would no longer back the club financially, and
Les Girondins have been placed in administration as the search for a new owner gets underway. Normally French league rules dictate that any club going into administration mid-season would automatically be relegated at the end of the campaign. Luckily for Bordeaux, the COVID-19 crisis has led to a rule change. They now have until the beginning of next season to find new backers.
Can the club find a suitable new owner in such a short time? Jean-Baptiste Aldige, the owner of rugby union club Biarritz Olympique, has been linked with a takeover, and the region’s highly-valued wine industry has also been touted as a source of income. Rennes owner and billionaire Francois Pinault called on owners of Bordeaux’s most prestigious vineyards to step in, while it has also been suggested that Chinese investment could be imminent, given that a quarter of the wine produced in the area is sold in China.
How much another foreign investor without a footballing pedigree would please the club’s long-suffering supporters remains to be seen.
GabrielJohnson