FlashFocus: The inside story of Bordeaux's fall from Ligue 1 to liquidation fears

Bordeaux are a monument of French football, but a blow from a mechanical digger in 2024 is much stronger than all the bricks laid since 1920. The club, which has won the French title six times, most recently in 2009, has seen a succession of megalomaniac presidents and owners who have not always known how to run a football club, from the innate Claude Bez in the 1980s and '90s to King Street.

And while the M6 era was not always a success, the club has always played at the top of the table.

Then Gerard Lopez arrived.

In less than three years, Bordeaux went from Ligue 1 to the depths of National 2. The professional status acquired in 1934? Gone. The women's section, which until recently was fighting to qualify for the Champions League? Sent down to Regional 1 (fourth division) without a fuss after going down at the end of last season.

The training centre? Gone. The U19 and U17 sections were axed, with only the U18 and U15 sections remaining, a sine qua non if the club was not to fall further down the table. The reserves in N3 welcomed the reinforcements of Rio Mavuba and Paul Baysse, glorious veterans, to complete a team that struggled to field even eleven players at kick-off.

The French Football Federation's competitions committee held an emergency meeting in August, which was very accommodating, and approved the postponement of Matchday Two against Poitiers.

Les Girondins salvaged a point in the last minute thanks to a goal from... goalkeeper Lassana Diabate!

But how could the club, one of the most respected and popular in France, have sunk so low in such a short space of time?

Gerard Lopez, stones and saucepans

Before telling the story of his downfall, we need to go back to the early 1990s, when computers were gradually making their way into business life and then into everyday life. A graduate of Miami University (Ohio), Lopez made his fortune by investing in new computer-related technologies. His stroke of genius was to invest in Skype before selling the company to eBay for 4.1 billion dollars.

But he doesn't stop at financial advice and private asset management. In 2014, he struck a deal with the governor of the Yamalo-Nenetsi Autonomous District and a representative of Vladimir Putin to bring in Asian and Middle Eastern investors and bring the world's largest gas reserve to fruition. His company's capital rose to 12 billion dollars and, following the first Russian invasion of Ukraine, he sold his shares. Energy brokerage, investment and cryptocurrency: Lopez jumped on all the fashionable speculative bubbles. One question remains unanswered: what exactly is his personal wealth?

Like many billionaires, he has a passion for top-level sport, and while football has not been spared by the businessman, neither has motorsport.

Lopez arrived as Renault's saviour after 'Singapore Gate'. A few months earlier, in 2008, Flavio Briatore, then director of Renault, had instructed Nelson Piquet Jr to voluntarily crash into one of the walls of the Asian circuit. His action enabled his teammate Fernando Alonso to win the race.

Misery, shame and scandal in the family: Renault F1 were in the throes of scandal... until Lopez took over the reins.

He bought the team and renamed it Lotus. He had big plans to restore the Enstone team's reputation. At first, everything went like clockwork. The team finished fourth in the constructors' championship. It also launched Romain Grosjean and recruited Kimi Raikkonen in 2012. It's just that... behind the scenes, all was not rosy. Lopez was squandering money and trying to buy RC Lens.

In 2013, the deception was exposed. The Finnish driver told the press that he was no longer receiving his salary and that the technical staff were not being paid.

Logically, he left the team for Ferrari and the nightmare began again for Lopez. His company was in debt to the tune of 140 million euros.

And just like today, to compensate, the businessman continued his work using his own funds. This didn't work out either. The technicians left in 2014 and the car could not be developed during the season. In 2015, he was forced to give up because he was still in debt.

So he switched sports, swapping engines for football. The most surprising thing is that, despite this calling card, clubs have put their trust in him, without listening to the sound of pots and pans.

Marseille were in the sights of Lopez, but Margarita Louis-Dreyfus heard the dissonant orchestra and preferred Frank McCourt's offer. With that, he turned his sights on Lille in 2017.

Three seasons later, Lopez had to clear out of Lille at the end of 2020, unable to repay a debt of €120m.

Six months later, he took over Bordeaux, already on the brink of collapse, and pushed them to the bottom of the ravine. The team were relegated to Ligue 2 in 2022, but a return to the top flight was still a possibility when matchday 38 of the 2022-2023 season kicked off.

After Rodez had opened the scoring, an excited fan came onto the pitch and pushed Lucas Buades. The referee stopped the match and the club lost it and, consequently any chance of a return to the top flight.

After that, it was all-in: either Bordeaux would be back in Ligue 1 by 2024 or they would go down. At the table, Lopez didn't have a pair of aces but a two and a seven - bluffing wasn't working anymore.

At Bordeaux, the fall was swift and inexorable. While institutions such as Rangers in Scotland, Parma and Fiorentina in Italy, Malaga and Recreativo de Huelva in Spain had experienced financial meltdowns that took them to the very bottom of the domestic hierarchy, France seemed to be safe from such a setback for a club of that stature.

Girondins seemed safe. Because behind the club, there is Bordeaux, a global brand, the world's largest vineyard, a place capable of attracting rich owners. But just like the wineries bought by Chinese billionaires who have no idea how to create a grand cru before getting bored and letting their acquisition lie fallow, a football club is not a business like any other: you need sporting and financial results to stay afloat and pass the DNCG exam.

In this respect, the Hispano-Luxembourgish is an expert. Failed with Lotus in F1, failed with Lille, disappeared with Mouscron in Belgium, catastrophic situation with Boavista in Portugal: Lopez is a serial loser and it would take a profiler to understand his ability to crash all his forays into sport. Bordeaux was no exception to the rule.

Before the fall, 15 years out of the game

Lopez may have been the last man standing, but Bordeaux did not collapse overnight. Between Olympique Lyonnais' seven consecutive titles and the start of Paris Saint-Germain's Qatari domination, the Girondins found time to win a French league title. In 2009 - an eternity ago.

But as the saying goes, the hardest part isn't getting to the top, it's staying there. In December 2009, Bordeaux were 12 points clear at the top of the league and looked set to do the double and establish themselves as the new boss of Ligue 1 after years of ultra-dominance by Les Gones.

Six months later, the Girondins weren't champions and that was just the start of 15 years of terribly mediocre choices, in sporting, financial and human terms.

14 different coaches in 15 years after Laurent Blanc decided that the Bordeaux coaching job was too small for him. Big names, locals, glorious old hands, up-and-coming coaches. Only Francis Gillot has spent more than two seasons on the bench, and as a result, he won the club's only trophy in that time, the 2013 Coupe de France. Coincidence?

We won't attempt to count the number of players who have worn the jersey in 15 years, as that would take far too long. But it is in that time that Bordeaux have become one of the symbols of everything that is wrong with French football. As one of the most historic clubs in French football, the club has sought to continue to play a leading role, but in the wrong way: by attracting established Ligue 1 players and former internationals such as Jeremy Toulalan and Laurent Koscielny on huge salaries, and by trying one or two moves abroad, such as Diego Contento, whose stint has been most forgettable.

The aim was to get the mayonnaise going. But how could it if the coach changed every year? Obsessed by the desire for immediate results - the cancer of modern football - the directors did everything backwards. And nothing changed when M6, fed up, gave up.

Co-author of the book Girondins de Bordeaux, enquête sur une descente aux enfers with Nicolas Paolorsi, Vincent Romain, explained the background to Lopez's purchase of the club from King Street for just €1: "M6 sold the club to King Street and GACP in 2018. They put in €70m and €2m respectively.

"King Street was the ultra-majority shareholder but this company is run by financiers who have no business running a football club. So GACP was brought in as an operating partner, in other words as the day-to-day manager, particularly of the sporting side of things. But after the 2019 season, which was managed entirely by GACP, King Street realised that everything had gone wrong. 

"GACP had authorised insane salaries to the point where the initial investment was in jeopardy. King Street then bought out GACP's shares and found themselves alone at the helm of the Girondins, a victim of his naivety and very poor managerial choices."

Prior to their arrival, M6 had had the good idea of sacking coach Gustavo Poyet, who had arrived during the previous season and managed to turn the club around and qualify for Europe. His crime? Complaining publicly that his management had transferred Gaetan Laborde without informing him in advance. That was the Girondins' last real season of note.

The youth academy was continuing to produce quality youngsters. Proof? They are Jules Kounde and Aurelien Tchouameni, who now play for Spain's two biggest clubs and are mainstays of the French national team. What did they earn? Including bonuses, €50 million.

What happened to that money? We have no idea. In view of the pedigrees of the two players, it seems an indigent sum in any case.

Bordeaux no longer knew how to buy, no longer knew how to sell and no longer knew how to keep a coach for the long term. So it came as no surprise that in 2022, four years after the withdrawal of M6 and just one year after the arrival of Lopez, the club lost its place in Ligue 1 just a few months after losing its 44-year unbeaten home record to Marseille, the last bastion to which the most assiduous supporters clung to in order to continue believing that Bordeaux had a future.

The solution of selling the club became apparent much sooner than expected.

"King Street agreed to raise money for the club in order to finance the takeover of the Girondins," explains Vincent Romain.

"The other potential takeover candidates were most likely to opt for the receivership route. The world was just emerging from a pandemic, and the finances of French clubs were not at their best, prompting Vincent Labrune to deal with CVC to raise fresh money, even on very unfavourable terms. The LFP then decided to temporarily modify its rules with an exceptional ruling. 

"If a club was placed in receivership between the end of one season and the start of the next, it would not be punished by an automatic administrative demotion, even though this has always been the rule," explained the journalist.

"It was a golden opportunity to be seized: the club could have stayed in Ligue 1 and it would also have made it possible to reduce the debt considerably. However, it would have been difficult to apply because of the inequity it would have created with other clubs."

But for future investors, the best solution was to take the club down a notch: "Rationally, it was better to take Girondins back into Ligue 2 with a receivership and therefore very low debts than to take it back into L1 with a considerable debt."

But this consideration was not the one that most suited King Street, who wanted to save their skin: "It was more interesting for them to find a buyer through a classic procedure, with a stay in Ligue 1 and therefore debt, including the debt owed to King Street. So it was Lopez who was chosen, because otherwise, the company would lose everything."

Smoke screen

As soon as he arrived, Lopez realised that he had to win over the fans if he was to restore the popular link with King Street and GACP.

"He quickly realised that there was a real disconnect between his predecessors and the supporters, including the Ultras," explains Romain.

"He quickly got close to them to understand the problems, what wasn't working and what needed to be changed. Listening to them was far from absurd, because it's the fans who buy the tickets, liven up the stadium and follow the team on its travels."

Lopez returned the old crest, which had been changed without discussion by the previous owners, and rehabilitated the head of security, who was close to the ultras and had been vegetating in a cupboard for many months.

"Above all, he sold his project by saying that he was the only one who could guarantee the club's existence in Ligue 1."

Not only are Girondins no longer in Ligue 1, they have plummeted to National 2, France's fourth tier. For a time, Lopez hoped to sell the club to Fenway at the end of last season - but, the businessman was bluffing again. 

"The financial situation at Girondins is absolutely dramatic, and that's why Fenway ended up throwing in the towel, because the financial abyss is so huge," says Romain, before rattling off some staggering figures.

"To take control of the club and pass the DNCG's scrutiny, they had to put €40m on the table with no chance of seeing it again, and then 10s and 10s of millions of euros to break even by restructuring the whole club. In the long term, it might be feasible, but the risk is particularly high. 

"What's more, taking over Girondins last spring meant picking up a staggering wage bill, €36m including expenses, i.e. twice as much as the turnover excluding transfers, which was €18m last season. And then there are all the running costs and the repayment of debts to creditors such as King Street and Fortress."

It's a far cry from the jubilation of the 100th anniversary of the Stade Chaban-Delmas, where all the club's legends, from Alain Giresse and Zinedine Zidane to Bixente Lizarazu and Christophe Dugarry, turned up. But none of the stars who attended on May 14th 2024 were able to help find a viable buyer.

With an annual loss of €40m and a debt of €120m, even a billionaire would look twice before jumping into this quagmire: "Is there such a thing as an investor who is passionate about Girondins? I don't think so. And Lopez has always wanted to stay at the helm of the club. Under those conditions, how can they buy the club? You can't force an owner to sell."

Climb or die?

The Hispano-Luxembourger is still there, as convinced as ever that he is going to sort everything out and get Girondins back to the top, like a gambler at the casino convinced that he is going to win again. This attitude goes hand in hand with the club's stated ambition not to remain in National 2 despite the catastrophic situation.

Bruno Irles , a former coach at Troyes and Monaco's training centre, is taking up the challenge. Only three players from last season have stayed on, with a number of old hands returning, including Cédric Yambéré and Younès Kaabouni, who won the Coupe Gambardella in 2013. The club's lustre has also helped to bring back players who were playing Ligue 2.

But nothing is simple, especially when it comes to the regulations. Qualification for the eighth round of the Coupe de France against Stade Bordelais could be cancelled after a goalkeeper came on as an outfield player when he was not allowed to do so... something the match delegate himself did not seem to know about, as he authorised Irles to make the substitution.

The arrival of Andy Carroll had the merit of revitalising Bordeaux's attack - on the team's return to the Matmut Atlantique, he scored a brace against Chateaubriant in a 2-2 draw - but at present, with five matches played, they have just one win to their name and are near the bottom of Group B, in the relegation places.

However, there has been a silver lining. They started the season behind closed doors at the Stade Sainte-Germaine in Le Bouscat, then the Stade Bordeaux Atlantique company made a substantial effort, charging €0 rent, to give the Girondins a helping hand so that they could play at the Matmut Atlantique - a soulless stadium built on the outskirts of Bordeaux for EURO 2016.

Playing in their own stadium is a real advantage if they are to climb back up the table and nurture the goal of a promotion to the National League, the first step on the road back to professional football.

But they also need to look beyond that, says Vincent Romain: "The real issue is what happens if the club doesn't go up, because we'll have to put money back in, although we don't yet know exactly how much, probably not a huge sum because the redundancy plan will have been implemented and the debt will have been significantly reduced.

The club has a meeting with the commercial court on 29 October, and the stakes are high, as the decision could be taken to liquidate the club outright and immediately: "They have already had to put between €2m and €3m back into the club to finance the redundancy plan. There's always a sword of Damocles hanging over their heads. I'd be very surprised if this ends up in liquidation because that would mean Lopez would lose everything.

"Would he have worked so hard to hand over so much money, including to finance the redundancy plan, to stop everything now?"

In other words, it's Gerard Lopez's demise or the club's demise.