The new director of recruitment Matthieu Louis-Jean has been in post at Olympique Lyonnais since Saturday and he has already suffered a major blow. The second passage before the National Directorate of Management Control (DNCG) of OL, this Tuesday, did not indeed convince the financial policeman of French football.
After a “stay of proceedings pending further information from the club” last week, the club bought by John Textor and his holding company Eagle Football in December 2022 has indeed just been sanctioned by the DNCG.
The LFP has thus announced a “supervision of the wage bill and transfer allowances” for OL, which will therefore not be able to manage its summer transfer window as it pleases, unless it appeals and wins. If transfers are not prohibited, certain operations could be compromised, like the wish of the Lyon leaders to recruit the American winger from Chelsea Christian Pulisic, with a tidy sum of 25 million euros offered to the Blues at the key .
After thirty-six years of the Jean-Michel Aulas era, we are curious to see how OL will negotiate this delicate turn, which follows two sad seasons (8th and 7th in Ligue 1) without European qualification. Despite the upcoming sale of OL Reign and the big salaries saved with the end of the contracts of Houssem Aouar, Moussa Dembélé and Jérôme Boateng, Lyon will in any case have to be very reasonable and astute this summer to build a team to even to aim for the podium.