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Mediapart has documents demonstrating the payment of commissions from the FCGB to the businessman’s companies. Gérard Lopez’s lawyer responded to each point. You can read it here on the Mediapart website. We noted 3 extracts.
First of all, during the takeover of the club in July 2021, Gérard Lopez would have only brought €10M in the form of a cash advance due instead of the €40M promised, indicates the media. The rest came from state aid following COVID (€10M), and a €20M loan from King Street and Fortress, two investment funds.
So on August 18, 2021, barely a month after taking control of the club, “Gérard Lopez signs, as president of the Girondins de Bordeaux, a services agreement called “organizational, strategic and management advice” committing the club to pay an amount of 3.3 million euros to the holding company La Dynamie, controlled by Gérard Lopez”, writes the investigative media.
This represents 7% of the club’s turnover during this period, indicates Mediapart. This sum will be €500,000 the following year.
In addition, in 2022, the FCGB paid €2.8M of “management fees “to the head holding JB Group that G.Lopez’s lawyer justifies by “essential services for management and supervision. Entities, including FCGB. These fees include all transactions related to debt restructuring, including debt renegotiation, King Street and Fortress, which have been reduced by 75%.”
Bordeaux had been sportingly downgraded to Ligue 2, and the debt to Fortress was reduced by 75% by the businessman. These would therefore be “management” costs.
Finally, we learn that Claude Zimmer, co-manager with Gérard Lopez of Jogo Bonito Group, was paid 18,000 euros per month for a “mission of analysis of possible tax optimization mechanisms to be implemented and, where applicable, the implementation of these mechanisms and advice on international taxation, particularly with regard to Franco-Luxembourg tax relations.” The JB Dynamie holding company, a subsidiary of Jogo Bonito Group, and owner of FCGB via Dynamie SAS, signed an agreement with this man for this mission from October 2021. We do not know for how long he received this remuneration.
Today, FCGB is in receivership and has a debt of €118 million. In addition, the club moved from the summer of 2021 to the summer of 2024 from the first to the 4th French division, and lost its professional status and its training center. A social plan will put at least 90 people out of business.
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