Bordeaux and St. Etienne: welcome to oblivion – Sport

The brutality of the scenes could hardly be surpassed: AS St. Etienne ultras threw dozens of burning Bengalos into the entrance area of ​​the dressing room, chasing the players, their own and the opponents. The lawn at the Stade Geoffroy-Guichard burned in several places, some of the hooligans even penetrated the parking spaces of the St. Etienne players inside the stadium – and demolished their cars.

The Loire Prefecture later named a total of 33 injured, including 14 police officers, in its damage balance sheet. The minutes after the relegation second leg, lost on penalties to AJ Auxerre, crowned a grotesquely unsuccessful season for the “Stéphanois” in an inglorious way. The supporters misbehaved again, which is why the French record champions, who won the title ten times – as often as Paris St. Germain recently – are likely to start their first second division season in 18 years without a spectator and possibly with a point deduction.

Bordeaux were in the Uefa Cup final 26 years ago with Zidane and Lizarazu

The fact that in Girondins Bordeaux another traditional French club is sinking into the second division could be seen as a parallel to the Bundesliga final a year ago: At that time Werder Bremen and Schalke 04 said goodbye to the upper house, a green and a royal blue club, which together won eleven German championships . The Greens from St. Etienne and the Navy Blues from Bordeaux even have 16 national titles together. However, it is quite questionable whether the badly hit clubs will manage to remedy the accident as quickly as their German counterparts. Because in both cases, mismanagement and a completely failed squad planning have recently accelerated the decline significantly.

The once so proud Girondins were 26 years ago with greats like Zinédine Zidane and Bixente Lizarazu in the Uefa Cup final against FC Bayern. Just before the Qatari sheikhs joined PSG, Bordeaux won the league for the last time in 2009, with a starless team but with Laurent Blanc as coach. Things have been going downhill slowly and steadily in recent years, and footballing inadequacies have been joined by immense economic problems since spring 2021: In the wake of the corona pandemic, the US hedge fund King Street announced that it would no longer support Bordeaux. The Americans are now demanding back the almost 50 million euros that they had channeled into the club since 2018.

The forced descent threatened, then last July the Luxembourg businessman Gerard Lopez came on the scene as a savior, who had previously made the OSC Lille from the renovation case to the champion 2021. He took over part of the around 80 million euros in debt that the Bordelais had accumulated in the meantime and brought in the previous Swiss national coach Vladimir Petkovic to continue the glorious times. But everything went wrong in the past season: Petkovic neither managed to strengthen the defensive around goalkeeper Benoît Costil and former Arsenal defense chief Laurent Koscielny, nor did he manage to settle disputes.

At the end of the season there were 91 goals against after 38 games, and former Bundesliga players Marcelo (Hannover 96) and Joshua Guilavogui (VfL Wolfsburg), who were brought in during the winter break, did not bring stability. Actors were suspended and pardoned again, and there were also disputes with the Ultras in Bordeaux. Internally, the quarrels even went so far that a young professional was accused of stealing the football boots from his colleagues and selling them on the Internet.

David Guion, the successor to the unsuccessful Petkovic, could not prevent the descent either. Now the club may finally be faced with the shards of its existence. The National Control and Management Department of the Football League (DNCG) is threatening to transfer Bordeaux to the third division if those responsible do not raise 20 million euros by mid-June, for example through player sales or bonus payments that are due should former Girondins talents such as Jules Koundé (from Sevilla FC to Chelsea?) or Aurélien Tchouameni (from AS Monaco to Real Madrid?) change clubs. Some French media reports that the financial gap that needs to be closed is as much as 40 million.

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In any case, the ice that President Lopez is walking on is thin. The Belgian second division club Excel Mouscron, which also belongs to him, only filed for bankruptcy on Tuesday. And Lopez? Wrote a hawkish message to fans, insisting he still believes in the ‘Girondins revival’. And admitted that the descent was “collectively and personally a failure”. “The mission,” Lopez said, “turned out to be more complicated than expected.”

Record champion St. Etienne is sold – US billionaire David Blitzer allegedly wants to get in

The situation at St. Etienne, Michel Platini’s former club, is no less precarious. It was less than five years ago that they played against Manchester United in the Europa League, and in 2019 they reached European competition again. Then the savings plan decreed by the two main shareholders, Bernard Caiazzo and Roland Romeyer, who have been controversial for years, took hold: they let well-known players go, mercilessly suppressing expenses. Presumably to force the long-awaited sale of the club. Still, last winter, when St Etienne were bottom of Ligue 1 with just 12 points from 19 games, there was not a single acceptable bid. The owners had already rejected Cambodian Prince Norodom Ravichak’s purchase proposal in mid-October.

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A change of coach – Pascal Dupraz replaced veteran Claude Puel – brought only brief success. With many young players who couldn’t cope with the pressure and some emergency purchases from the winter, the club just avoided direct relegation – and failed in the relegation. “Unfortunately, the project that was set up was clearly not of the Ligue 1 level,” Tunisia international Wahbi Khazri told RMC radio. However, he defended his colleagues: “There isn’t a player in this group who wouldn’t have given two hundred percent.”

Hopes are now pinning on billionaire investor David Blitzer from New Jersey. With his Bolt Football Holding, he is involved in the New York Yankees baseball club and FC Augsburg, among others. He allegedly wants to invest up to 100 million euros so that the main shareholders pay off, pay off debts and set up a new team. Possibly with former professional Laurent Batlles as a coach, who led Troyes to Ligue 1 a year ago.

In any case, one thing seems to be clear: the record champions have to get back up as soon as possible, if only to pacify the ultras. Otherwise it could soon be on fire again in the stadium of St. Etienne, which is nicknamed “Le Chaudron” for good reason: witches’ cauldron.