And presto, one more. After Marseille, Lyon, Toulouse and Le Havre, the Racing Club de Strasbourg goes under the American flag. The recent 15th in Ligue 1 has been officially controlled since Thursday by the BlueCo consortium, which bought Chelsea last year, and also owns the Los Angeles Dodgers (MLB) baseball team as well as shares in the Los Angeles Lakers ( NBA).
“BlueCo is committed to preserving the legacy of Racing and wishes to work closely with Marc Keller and his management team in order to continue the excellent work carried out”, indicates the press release of the group, which maintains the president and the current management in job. BlueCo has bought almost all of the club’s shares, said a source familiar with the matter, without being able to give the amount of the investment, however.
“It’s an important day for Racing,” said Marc Keller, who took over the Strasbourg club 11 years ago to the day, a year after its judicial liquidation, and brought it up all levels of French football. .
“It’s a reflection that my shareholder friends and I have been carrying out for two years,” he continued. We have built a healthy club at all levels and well managed. Even if there was no financial emergency, we were aware that we had reached the ceiling of our model, and that if we wanted to continue to advance Racing and project it into a new dimension, we necessarily had to be accompanied by a solid structure capable of supporting our development and our ambition”.
Keller, a former Strasbourg and France striker, wanted to reassure fans worried about seeing their club become a Chelsea reserve. They have already been cooled by several unfortunate events in the past, such as the 2011 bankruptcy filing, which forced the first team to leave CFA 2, the fifth division at the time.
“No affiliation with Chelsea”
“Racing will become a club among these clubs, there will be no filiation with Chelsea,” insisted a source close to the club. “There will be a common shareholder but separate sports departments. There may be collaborations but this will not be the priority. »
“The Eurometropolis of Strasbourg, owner of the stadium, and the City of Strasbourg, partner in its renovation, will remain vigilant to the transition between the shareholders and to the new methods of governance which will be put in place”, indicated the two entities in a joint statement. These will be “also attentive to the territorial anchoring of the club, to the quality of the dialogue between the shareholders and leaders of the club and the communities”, even if they welcome the retention of Marc Keller.
For the moment, BlueCo’s expertise in football is not obvious. Despite spending fortunes on costly and sometimes illogical recruitment, Chelsea only finished 12th in the Premier League last season.