Since Monday and the announcement of his departure, the praises rain. They are deserved, Jean-Michel Aulas will remain as one of the greatest presidents in the history of French football. From a club languishing in D2, OL have turned into a real stronghold in Europe, with seven consecutive league titles and two Champions League semi-finals.
JMA has also earned a good reputation as a virtuoso of bad faith. A characteristic that contributed to forging his successes but in which he sometimes got lost, even if it meant damaging his image, as when he roughly implied that Bayern and Schalke were doped in 2010 or that he minimized the seriousness of the incidents that led to the end of the match between OL and OM in 2021. Examples among many others. Failing to compile them, we have chosen five where the now former Lyon boss has let himself be overtaken by his diabolical double, Jean-Michel Mauvaise Foi.
The art of arbitration controversy
The context
Finding all the times the Lyon boss has expressed his exasperation with the referees is a challenge. All those who have officiated over the past 30 years have been there, whether in front of their locker room door, via the media or directly on Twitter for the youngest. Some examples ? “The annoying lack of consistency” of Mr. Dechepy on an OL-Lorient in 2021, the “aberration” of a penalty awarded to Neymar by Mr. Turpin a little earlier, the “big mistakes” of Mr. Gautier against at OM in 2019 or, older, Mr. Thual who “cannot arbitrate at this level and not know the personality of the players” after having excluded Källström in 2007. Not to mention the multiple calls for “an explanation addressed to Pascal Garibian (boss of referees from 2013 to 2022), as probably to his predecessors. In truth, we will miss it.
The witness: Bruno Derrien, Ligue 1 referee from 1995 to 2007
“He is a character who cannot leave anyone indifferent. A real personality. He had chiseled formulas, and not only with regard to the referees elsewhere. It was in his role to defend his club above all, it is visceral with him. He understood before anyone else that communication was important, so he didn’t miss anything. As a referee, we knew he was on purpose to put himself on the front line to protect his players, his coach or the institution. It was not necessary to attach too much importance to what he said, to take a step back. In general, criticism constantly falls on the referees, you have to be hermetic to all that, otherwise you no longer live. He had this impulsive side, in the present moment, but basically his relations with the referees were good. »
The day Aulas had the dented lawn of d’Ornano noted by a bailiff
The context
On March 4, 2005, OL moved onto the lawn of SM Caen, or rather what was left of it. For coach Paul Le Guen and his president, playing in a trench is out of the question. So, to postpone the match, Aulas invites a bailiff to see the state of the lawn. The officer may put his muzzle in the mud and nod his head to say that, yes, all the same, this field is damn bad, the match will take place at the referee’s will. OL will lose 1-0, which will be worth to JMA to pique a big anger at the microphone of Canal+. “On this ground, there were more turned over clods of earth than bits of grass. […] The referee was stubborn under the friendly pressure of the Caennais. We lost, the France of football must be happy. »
The witness: Regis Duchemin, former gardener from Caen
“As a gardener, it was one of my worst moments. The land was in poor condition following a degradation that had started in the fall and only got worse. It had rained a lot and the ground was completely broken. A real potato field. We could only win on a field like that! Aulas had had the state of the lawn noted. We had won 1-0 so we had drawn his wrath a bit. But hey, at the time, it was the daily life of Aulas. As OL won everything, as soon as there was a pebble in the shoe, they got on their high horse. In any case, I was not accountable to anyone. After that, we redid the lawn the following summer. »
The cessation of the 2019-2020 championship because of the Covid-19
The context
March 2020, France, like all countries in the world, is in a health emergency because of Covid-19. “At war”, even, according to President Macron, which confines everyone. On April 28, Prime Minister Edouard Philippe spoke of Ligue 1 before the National Assembly: “The 2019-2020 season of professional sport, especially football, will not be able to resume”, he asserts. All of Gaul is behind this wise decision. All ? No, an irreducible club president is resisting: Jean-Michel Aulas, while OL are 7th and out of European places. The leader, who proposed around 83 ideas to end the season or establish a more equitable classification in his eyes (white season, classification established over the last seasons, play-offs for Europe and the descents) takes refusals very badly and enters into open war against the FFF, the LFP and even the government.
The witness: A former member of the Professional Football League
“I was very surprised that he was fighting this battle. Before Edouard Philippe’s announcement, we had worked on a health protocol, but from the moment the Prime Minister says stop, it is no longer debatable. We did everything to be able to resume the championship and Jean-Michel Aulas knew it very well since we had established this protocol with Emmanuel Orhant, the medical director of the Federation and former OL player. But it’s a bit his problem, in these cases he is in denial. When he’s like that, if you tell him that this bottle is blue, he’ll tell you no, it’s yellow. It’s impossible to reason with him, it’s as if he were in a sort of intoxication with unreason. There is something that no longer rises to the brain. He knew very well that it was a foregone conclusion, and I’m sure his lawyers told him that, but he didn’t want to stop. He was like blinded. He is passionate, but at this level it is no longer passion, it is unreason. »
Jean-Michel Aulas, Twitter and “the Café du Commerce”
The context
Arrived with great fanfare on Twitter at the beginning of the previous decade, Jean-Michel Aulas initially moved the crowds with his connected boomer side. He responds to the most anonymous of his followers/detractors in an anarchic style, where punctuation is only an option. Everyone laughs, until the day when Lyon’s decline goes too far, to the point of losing patience with its supporters, for many tough-skinned tweeters. Aulas still responds, but on the defensive. The blue bird serves as a spotlight for a bad faith put at the service of the institution and the coaches in place. His infallible support for Bruno Genesio, in particular, will cause irreversible dissension with the “Twitter supporters” of Lyon.
The witness: Charly Moriceau, alias “Serious Charly”
“The divorce with Aulas began in 2017 with the birth of the famous “Café du commerce”, an expression used by Bruno Genesio in a press conference. This is the moment when the supporters of the networks begin to be in opposition to the club, and the beginning of a line of defense in which the club had decreed that the real supporters were those who supported OL, as opposed to others. , more critical: the bad supporters. There was absurd stuff like an interview with Aulas in The Team which basically says that supporters who live in Paris influence the youngest and are on a secret mission in the service of PSG. Aulas ended up applying the line of defense at the national level of “one against all, OL disturbs, etc.” internally. He created a disenchantment around him because of that. He is a great president but a bad crisis manager. »
When Jean-Michel Aulas shoots a gun The Team
The context
In the scale of epidermal reactions from Aulas, there is the cute little tackle on the networks and the big slap in the face via press release. The second option is a privilege reserved for high spheres, of which the newspaper is a part The Team, scratched several times. Two major episodes to remember. An open letter in 2010, in response to an article that reported Cris’ contempt for his coach, Claude Puel (“he sucks”). More recently, in 2020, Jean-Michel Aulas sent an inflammatory letter to the daily, guilty of having published an article on the erosion of JMA’s reputation during the Covid-19 period. It will be published in The Team in the form of a right of reply and doubled with criticisms supported on the networks. The conflict will run out of steam after publication of a final editorialsigned by the managing editor of The TeamJerome Cazadieu.
The witness: Régis Dupont, journalist at ” The Team »
“The day this paper was published on the site, around 7-8 p.m., I was surprised to have no response from Aulas, as was usual. I finally received a phone call from Olivier Blanc [directeur de la communication], particularly uplifted. They had seen innuendo where there were none and took personally an article where I had only related the feeling of many club presidents in L1. The next day, JMA sent the heavy cavalry with this press release where my name is posted on the OL website. It was quite unhealthy. I still continue to think that he is the greatest president that French football has ever known. What is surprising is that he maintains a balance of power with the media precisely because the press is important to him. In another life, he could have been a journalist. He was one of the last presidents to have a real relationship with us and it was appreciable. »