In discussions with the Girondins, the Sphera Partners LLP group threw in the towel.
The English investment group Sphera Partners LLP, in advanced discussions with the Girondins to take over the women’s section, excluded on Thursday from all national championships by the federal DNCG, announced on Saturday that it would not appeal this decision.
In a press release, the Girondins specified that “Sphera Partners LLP was unable to provide the necessary guarantees to finance the club’s activities”which evokes “an unexpected failure on the day of the hearing which called into question their ability to implement their commitments” of recovery.
The English fund, created just four months ago by Nicola Jane Boyd and Rowena Geneviève Samarasinhe, is thus giving up on the purchase of the women’s section of the club with the scapular which finished last in D1 last season and was relegated from a sporting perspective.
While the D2 championship is due to resume next weekend, the DNCG has excluded it from the national championships due to the financial difficulties of Gerard Lopez’s club, which is in debt to the tune of 118 million euros.
The press release also specifies that the Girondins are now working “to alternative emergency solutions to enable survival” of the women’s section. This could be achieved through the arrival of local investors who have recently come forward to the city of Bordeaux or through the creation of a SCIC (Cooperative Society of Collective Interest). The deadline for filing an appeal is Wednesday, September 11.
For their part, the leaders of the Girondin club, whose men’s first team now plays in N2 (4th division) following its double administrative relegation this summer, are expected on September 17 before the Bordeaux commercial court as part of the monitoring of their judicial recovery.
