The Swiss Lucien Favre has been relieved of his duties as coach of OGC Nice and will be replaced by his assistant Didier Digard, who will be on the bench of the Aiglons from Wednesday on the occasion of the reception of Montpellier at the Allianz Riviera . Aged 65, Favre returned to Nice at the start of the season after a first spell between 2016 and 2018. Currently 11th in Ligue 1, the Riviera club was eliminated this weekend in the 32nd finals of the Coupe de France by Le Puy, National team. Lucien Favre’s assistant, Christophe Moulin, is also dismissed. Both men were under contract until June 2024.
Didier Digard, new interim coach, will be supported within the staff by Frédéric Gioria, another historical figure of the Riviera club, and by goalkeeping coach Nicolas Dehon, two technicians who were part of Favre’s staff. While serving as reserve team coach, Digard had joined the professional team’s coaching staff during the long World Cup-related break. Former Saint-Etienne midfielder Julien Sablé had succeeded him in charge of the reserve and will also accompany him in the staff of team A.
Ninth coach to jump this season
The first part of the season was very complicated for Nice and Lucien Favre, who never managed to find continuity in the results after a chaotic transfer window. The announcement of the departure of the Swiss technician comes a few weeks after the arrival at the club of Florent Ghisolfi, former sports director of Lens.
Next month, the deputy managing director of Paris SG Jean-Claude Blanc must also take up his post as executive director of the Ineos Sport group, on which OGC Nice depends. With the dismissal of Lucien Favre, preceded by only a few hours by the precautionary layoff of Julien Stéphan, the Strasbourg coach, Ligue 1 is now at nine coaches dismissed from their functions since the start of the season.