“ Indentation. » The term, distilled by the communications department of Olympique de Marseille (OM), Tuesday September 19, at the end of a long period of silence, came to strangely conclude a day of crisis as the Marseille club experienced. the secret.
At the start of a week of key trips where it must successively face Ajax Amsterdam in the Europa League, Thursday, and Paris-Saint-Germain, in Ligue 1, Sunday, OM announced that four of its main managers – president Pablo Longoria, his right-hand man Javier Ribalta, director of football, general director Pedro Iriondo and financial director Stéphane Teissier – would not be traveling to the Netherlands and would be withdrawing from their functions. The day before, during a stormy meeting with representatives of supporters’ associations, the four men were brutally accused of their management of the club.
The official OM press release, released late in the evening on Tuesday, does not announce any clear decision. In this long text which carefully avoids mentioning names, the club belonging to the American businessman Frank McCourt only recalls that its board of directors “undertook a profound transformation of the organization (…) in the sole and best interest of the club” and “all of these efforts must be continued in the long term”.
OM also specifies “that particular attention is paid to ensure that each decision is made with the greatest integrity”. As a response to the attacks of the day before. He also warns that his board “cannot accept personal threats” and that one “relationship based on intimidation cannot guarantee the minimum acceptable conditions” for a continuation of its investment.
Confusion
During the day, to the rhythm of information relayed by the French and Spanish media, the Marseille club, in turn, saw itself lose its coach, the Spaniard Marcelino Garcia Toral, who arrived in June, then its president, his compatriot Pablo Longoria, in place since 2020. The two men, given starters by various sources, are therefore still officially in office. But the climate around the duo has cooled considerably and their maintenance, in the short term, appears difficult.
It’s everyday The Team who dropped the first bombshell, announcing on Tuesday that Marcelino, 58, had informed his squad after the day’s training that he was leaving OM. Information neither confirmed nor denied by the club.
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