What if… What if Yann Kitala had converted his shot on goal against Donovan Leon on May 20, 2022 at Abbé-Deschamps? That evening, FC Sochaux-Montbéliard lost on penalties against AJ Auxerre and saw their Ligue 1 dreams shattered, a short step from a dam against Saint-Étienne. Barely a year later, the Cubs find themselves, like Mufasa, on the precipice. And we all know how the film ends… Ninth in the championship this season, the Franche-Comté club finished far from expectations on the lawns. Unfortunately, the situation is even worse on the financial ground: the National Directorate of Management Control (DNCG) has recorded the administrative relegation of the FCSM to National due to the lack of guarantees presented to cover an estimated deficit of 22 million euros. There are now less than ten days left for the club to present a coherent budget to claim to evolve to the third national level. At the risk of going even lower.
Butterfly Effect
On Tuesday, the FCSM published a press release to explain that it “has applied itself to bringing together the guarantees that it lacked” by “drastically” reducing its payroll. About twenty players set sail. However, the Nenking Group, which bought the club in 2020, could not issue the additional check expected by the DNCG. In question ? The deterioration of the Chinese real estate market… which would particularly impact Nenking, whose activity is largely based on the sector. A terrible example of the butterfly effect. Blame it on bad luck, then? Maybe, but only in part. “This hole of 22 million euros, I’ve been hearing about it since this winter, and I can’t believe that the Chinese weren’t aware of it,” said Senator Cédric Perrin to The Republican East.
General manager Samuel Laurent, at the helm since 2019, crystallizes the criticism. A tag “SL: you killed the FCSM! “has also appeared in recent hours next to the Bonal stadium. The person concerned, author of several books on the Islamic State and Al-Qaida, has never hidden that he was not a football expert. However, the club has spent the last two years without a real sports director, until the appointment of Julien Cordonnier in May. In this interval, Samuel Laurent therefore managed everything himself. The club founded in 1928 is now paying a high price.
Discovered
Three weeks ago, Samuel Laurent readily admitted to France 3 that he had made “a very bad sports director”, recognizing “mistakes that we should never have made”, in particular building “a team for the moment T, (by recruiting) players who reassure us, that ‘we pay a lot of money, who are of a certain age’. The bet could have turned out to be a winner if the club had entered Ligue 1. It finally weighed on the accounts, especially since the team fell apart at the time of the final sprint (third after the 30th day, ninth at the arrival). “It’s lamentable, I’m disgusted, confides Philippe Anziani, 181 games in the Lionceaux jersey, in the columns of L’Est Républicain. I hope these people can look at themselves in a mirror. »
“How can we pay such salaries in Ligue 2? Sochaux had become the PSG of Ligue 2. There are jobs, lots of young people, a region. What a scandal! “, plague the one who also trained the club between 1998 and 1999. The sports assistant of the city of Montbéliard, Alexandre Gauthier, announced that he would file a complaint against Samuel Laurent. These management errors pushed the monument to the brink of bankruptcy, which would represent an earthquake in the footballing landscape. The FCSM weighs two French championship titles (1935, 1938), two French Cups (1937, 2007), a League Cup (2004) and a UEFA Cup semi-final (1981). Above all, he long held the record for matches (2,368 matches) in the first division, before OM dethroned him in 2016. Proof of his historic anchorage in the top of the hexagonal basket. Maybe not for very long, unfortunately.