A few weeks before the resumption of Ligue 1, the French championship still does not have a TV broadcaster for next season, due to a lack of agreement reached by the Professional Football League with Canal +, but not only that. A distressing situation which had recently led Jean-Michel Roussier, the boss of Le Havre, to get out of his depth regarding the choices made by the body and its president Vincent Labrune. This Friday, the Le Havre leader spoke once again on the subject, he who saw the DNCG sanction the Norman club with a control of its payroll. A decision causing discontent among Ciel et Marine but not surprising given the comments made by the former director of the Telefoot channel set up by Mediapro.
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“It was expected, it’s a logical decision, there’s nothing to say. The DNCG did the job, period. This is a direct consequence of what we suffer from non-regulation of HVAC. It’s been a year that I’ve been taking all the actions I can take against the League against this CVC story and the way we, Le Havre, were treated.assured the head of HAC in an interview given to The team. Frustrated by the deal made between the LFP and CVC, Jean-Michel Roussier – feeling wronged – thus justified the sanction pronounced by the DNCG by this shortfall: “The DNCG relies on the clubs’ equity capital to make its decisions. The gap is 32.5 million between what we received and the L1 club that received the least. It is our majority shareholder (Vincent Volpe) who is replacing CVC.”.
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Constrained by limited finances, Le Havre will therefore not be able to afford any madness in the summer transfer window. With this in mind, Jean-Michel Roussier has also confirmed “that there will only be transfers if there are sales”. However, the Normandy manager ensures that this control of the payroll does not change anything in the club’s project, strongly impacted by HVAC issues and the TV rights drama. A «double effet kiss cool» which will therefore push the last 15th of L1 to review its budget downwards. “TV rights? That’s 50% of the clubs’ budget. We know that we’ll never have amounts equivalent to those of last year. You’d have to be an idiot to think otherwise. So do you really imagine that I could maintain the wage bill at the same level as last year? In the best of all possible worlds, our revenues will drop by 25 to 30%. And I’m still optimistic in saying that.”.
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If the HAC will therefore have to tighten its belt in the coming months, Roussier has also assured that the current fiasco around TV rights directly impacts negotiations on the transfer market. “Foreign clubs see the current problem with our TV rights, they are revising their offers downwards. It complicates everything”he confided in this sense. An oppressive and oh so unstable context thus pushing the Le Havre players into a certain fragility on the economic level. Announced successor of Luka Elsner on the Normandy bench and while a press conference is planned this Monday at the beginning of the afternoon, Didier Digard therefore already knows what to expect for the transfer window of Ciel et Marine: prudence, wisdom and ingenuity will be, once again, the key words in the port city…
Pub. the 28/06/2024 18:00
Updated on 29/06/2024 04:58
