Lyon supporters have been waiting for the return of the derby for almost three years. But a less exciting meeting than this success against ASSE (1-0) could prove much more crucial for the history of their club five days later. After sharing videos on Instagram on Wednesday in a private plane in the Bahamas, the American owner of OL John Textor will be in Paris this Friday, alongside its general director Laurent Prud'homme, to try to convince the National Directorate of management control (DNCG) on the financial health of the club.
There will be a lot to do, given the publication of the accounts for the 2023-2024 financial year of Eagle Football Group (formerly OL Group), with a net loss of 25.7 million euros, after -99 M€ from the previous year and record debts accumulated to the tune of 505 million euros (383 M€ from 2022 with Jean-Michel Aulas, before the takeover by Textor).
More than ever, the little music “what if OL followed the same disastrous destiny as the Girondins de Bordeaux” is growing. So, can we draw a parallel between the Gérard Lopez fiasco in Lille then in Bordeaux and the Textorian management of OL?
Minimal personal investment and recourse to LBO
When John Textor completed his takeover of OL for around 800 million euros in December 2022, The Team had revealed that the American businessman had only put 5 million euros out of his pocket. This was surprising, but the followers of Losc and the Girondins de Bordeaux had experienced a comparable scenario when Gérard Lopez arrived at the head of their club, in January 2017 and July 2021 respectively.
No personal contribution to Lille then €10 million brought in his buyout arrangement in Bordeaux, the Luxembourg businessman had clearly based his business plan in football on the “leveraged buy-out” (LBO), or buyout through debt. “There was more debt injected into the Girondins at the time of the takeover than money injected at that time by Gérard Lopez, even if he subsequently put an additional €10 million into the club in the summer 2022 and €40 million in 2023,” confides Vincent Romain, journalist at South West and co-author of Girondins de Bordeaux, investigation into a descent into hell.
John Textor firmly defended himself from resorting to an LBO at his first press conference in France: “No, there is no LBO. I hate it. I don't have any debt in my life, it's a horrible thing for me. At the level of the holding company, we invested with our own funds, we have strong backs.” Two years later, this media outing has not aged well, especially since the Floridian announced when he took office that he wanted to repay OL's debts by the end of 2024.
Like Lopez in his time, the Textor method amounts to repaying its debt (refinanced in December 2023) thanks to the income generated by the club, even if it means selling off its assets, from the Lyon women's team to the LDLC Arena, including the franchise American women's football OL Reign, all sold in 2024.
Personalities that seduce
John Textor's rare press conferences since his arrival in Lyon are both refreshing and unpredictable. In the midst of good ideas presented to try to grow OL and French football, most often without a common thread, the Eagle boss was able to get completely lost in his figures during the assessment of the last transfer window.
This half-amusing, half-disturbing sequence sums up the character quite well, who was able to endear himself to supporters during OL's incredible return phase at the start of 2024. Capable of attending an international Pentecost U15 tournament and sharing beers with the fans at the edge of the pitch, John Textor was able to convince people in Lyon. Just as Gérard Lopez achieved it in Lille then in Bordeaux.
« Gérard Lopez very quickly understood which levers had to be activated when he arrived in Bordeaux. He put back in place the club logo, as well as the security manager who had a privileged link with the Ultramarines, and he reestablished a dialogue with them. He is an excellent communicator, with a charming side, and he told the supporters what they wanted to hear. The only problem is that it quickly clashes with reality and results. He told us one day that Bordeaux was one of the least indebted clubs in Europe. He still ended up in the commercial court this summer with 118 million euros in debt… »
Unpaid invoices and voluntary departure plan
“The Girondins have lived beyond their means for too long. » Here is one of the fatal refrains most shared by followers of the Bordeaux club. “The salaries given to players were unconscious until Ligue 2 last year,” adds Vincent Romain. In other proportions, OL shares this drift of an unreasonable lifestyle clearly started with Jean-Michel Aulas.
Despite five consecutive seasons without (vital) qualification in the Champions League since 2019, Lyon assumes average salaries around 180,000 euros gross monthly according to The Team. In this context, OL admitted in September to having late payments to suppliers in the region, totaling around 20 million euros.
Significant difficulties experienced there also at Losc as at the Girondins during the Gérard Lopez era. Likewise, another sign of its economic woes: OL announced two months ago a voluntary departure plan concerning 90 positions (out of more than 600 in total at the club). The Bordeaux precedent at this level, before the recent post-judicial recovery PSE, dates back to the fall of 2020, and therefore to the Longupée-King Street era, with around thirty positions targeted.
Two three-club timeshares
The comparison holds here too, in the three-headed “galaxies” of Gérard Lopez (Lille-Mouscron-Boavista then Bordeaux-Mouscron-Boavista) and John Textor (OL-Botafogo-Molenbeek). Certainly, the multiple ownership system is much more concrete in Lyon, just in the arrivals of Jeffinho, O'Brien, Perri and Adryelson, but Gérard Lopez has sometimes relied on the pool of Boavista, not without accounting entries. .
This is how the now English international Angel Gomes, recruited by Losc in 2020, was loaned for a season to the Lisbon club. Then three players mainly arrived from Boavista during Lopez's first transfer window in Bordeaux during the summer of 2021: Ricardo Mangas, Gideon Mensah and Alberth Elis. As for possible financial flows between the different entities, John Textor detailed his vision of things during his last press conference in September in Décines.
« We are allowed to freely exchange assets and cash in any direction we wish. Botafogo could, for example, invest money in Eagle Football Group in Lyon. It is therefore a rather confusing budget that we presented to the DNCG, that of a multinational company and not just of a football team. »
With one observation: Botafogo has never invested as much in its history as during the last two off-seasons (-€52 million in the departures-arrivals balance), with the possibility of winning its first Copa Libertadores at stake.
As John Textor needs new investors more than ever, what better idea than to buy an English club to attract them? After failing on the Everton file at the start of the school year, the 59-year-old American confirmed that he was still targeting a Premier League club, once his shares in Crystal Palace (45%) were sold.
Towards a takeover by the creditor like in Losc?
Gérard Lopez is doubly in the news this week. Sentenced Wednesday to 10 months of suspended imprisonment and a 45,000 euro fine for complicity in the illegal exercise of the profession of sports agent, he at the same time saw Boavista announce its judicial recovery, while Mouscron went bankrupt as soon as 2022.
His numerous scandalous affairs (the totally overvalued transfer of Osimhen to Naples, the transfers of three young Napoli players never seen before in Lille), which notably delighted Football Leaks, push Losc to bless the decision of the Elliott investment fund to oust Lopez, at the end of 2020, because he was slow to repay a debt of 225 million euros after the Covid-19 crisis. In the race for an unexpected Ligue 1 title, Lille will be champions five months later with a new team around Olivier Létang.
Unlike Girondins completely without assets, Losc is ultimately more comparable to OL, given the €130 million invested by Elliott which quickly fueled the 2017 transfer window with the Gérard Lopez-Luis Campos tandem and a good number of active players at the key. Another common point is the presence of American lenders (Elliott and Ares), the prospects of European qualifications, and therefore colossal cumulative debts, which Olivier Létang estimated on his arrival at €400 million, now settled.
Would the Ares investment fund, which lent €400 million to Eagle Football, be willing to take over the club if John Textor defaulted? This configuration materialized at AC Milan and Losc (Elliott) as well as at Inter Milan where the creditor Oaktree took over last year.
Will OL's creditors hold Textor accountable, and for how long do they believe the debt is sustainable? The main question is there, even more than in the role that the DNCG could play if it estimates the concrete risk of cessation of payments.
An administrative demotion already possible?
No, Losc and the Girondins de Bordeaux version of Gérard Lopez have never suffered such a brutal threat in the middle of the season. It will therefore be the same for OL this Friday against the DNCG, with the greatest risk being a demotion as a precautionary measure. This would push the Lyon club to a new decisive meeting before the body in six months to rule for good on administrative relegation.
The main negative consequence would be a significant reduction in assets. Likewise, a regulation of the payroll and recruitment could fall, as in the summer of 2023. Another bad signal, since it is accompanied by the need assumed by Eagle Football to “carry out transfers of players during the transfer window of January 2025.”
Our file on OL
Clearly, is it possible to go for the podium (or even the Top 4) synonymous with qualification for the Champions League if the return phase must take place without Malick Fofana and Rayan Cherki, the two main market values of the squad? OL too big to failwith its immense stadium which remains its main asset? We will have a first answer this Friday.
