This is also how you recognize a great club, the number of reactions and comments that its results, and more generally its management, generates on a daily basis. Suffice to say that knowing a little about the Bordeaux context for about ten years now, we expected to receive (very) many answers to our call for contributions on the Girondins de Bordeaux this week, around this question “What needs to change? “, while this historic club of French football is heading straight for Ligue 2. And indeed, 20 minutes received dozens of messages. Some touching on the image of Damien who admits to us having “cried twice at the stadium lately”, others longer and sometimes very argued to the point that we could have transferred them to the current management of the club.
As such, we would like to apologize for not being able to relay them all. But in the end, the same things often emerge from these testimonies full of dismay and anger. “The club no longer means anything to me, it lost its identity and its values a long time ago, summarizes Vincent, one of the most decided. Today, I dream of a destiny in Strasbourg! Most don’t go as far as this supporter, but they all come together around the idea of ”starting from scratch”. Over the messages, three wishes come up constantly: to restructure the club after years of mismanagement, to rebuild the athlete around the strong training center and finally to restore order so that everyone remains in their place around a more accessible and alive.
Starting from scratch but where and with whom?
This idea of starting from scratch comes above all from an observation made by Philippe: “The Girondins project is huge and almost insoluble. “If the hope of a new start had returned last summer with the acquisition of the club by Gérard Lopez, after three years of great nonsense symbolized by the disastrous management of the American investment funds GACP and King Street, this one was quickly disappointed. Off the field (supporters, finances, institutions, etc.), things may be a little better but above, it’s even worse since the Girondins are on the verge of relegation before their trip to Angers this Sunday (3 p.m.). But where to resume this “huge and almost insoluble” project? League 2 or N3? A real division exists between the supporters on this subject, even if a small majority wants the club to keep its professional status.
For Vincent (the second of the band), “we must use this potential descent to restructure the club and have ambitions to match what it has become today. Laurent develops in this sense: “The first thing to change is to stop taking yourself for what you haven’t been for a long time and work. We don’t succeed because we call ourselves the Girondins de Bordeaux, we succeed because we work coherently. This humility does not prevent us from being ambitious. “We are the most professional of amateur clubs,” charges Mathieu for his part.
After the “where” of course comes the question of with “who”? And one of the little surprises of our call for contributions is the lack of criticism towards Gérard Lopez. The owner and president of Marine et Blanc is rather spared. Why ? Philippe summarizes the general feeling:
“There should probably be people who play with their money and not that of invisible lending funds. People who take risks and not just a salary. But for example, none of the big Bordeaux fortunes has sketched out the slightest attempt at a recovery project in 2018 or 2021. they are shrewd businessmen who don’t want to invest in a bottomless pit. »
Lopez, he was not afraid to go. On the other hand, it is the management of the Hispano-Luxembourgish businessman who makes people cringe. Supporters, for example, unanimously demand the appointment of a deputy president. A president “who will be there every day because when the cat is not there, the mice are dancing”, as Sébastien explains. One of his namesakes wants a “local president who will step up to defend the interests of the club, or shake up the players when necessary”. In this sense, Vincent launches on the fly the names of “Johan Micoud, Stéphane Martin, or Laurent Blanc to embody the club on a daily basis and allow Admar Lopes [le directeur technique] to focus on the athlete. “More generally, Charles wishes” the return of some former glories of the club to inculcate the values of this one. »
Finally restructure the club
This is perhaps also one of the little surprises of our call for contributions, the number of messages on the very structure of the club. The received idea that supporters are only interested in results would therefore be false. Many of them recall to what extent the Girondins de Bordeaux are a completely oversized club today with its 300 employees and its insane fixed costs compared to its sporting level. It’s simple, “the number of employees at the club increased as the sporting level went down and M6 hid the misery by filling the structural deficit at the end of each year”, launches “Soubi”.
According to the DNCG report for the 2020-2021 season, the Girondins have a payroll of 65 million euros. It is the 7th biggest in Ligue 1 while the club has been vegetating for three years now in the second part of the table. By way of comparison, Lens has a payroll of 34 million euros, Strasbourg is 32, Reims 34, Montpellier 41, Nantes 45… And this Bordeaux anomaly has lasted for more than a decade even if of course the salaries of players have a lot to do with it. In any case, she questions Anthony: “Given how the club is working at the moment, I wonder what all these people are for, it’s disproportionate for me. There are many people for whom the soup is good and contributes indirectly to this situation, it is as long as this stops and that we clean up our club even if it means starting from very low. »
Moreover, there will be no other solutions if there is a demotion. Gérard Lopez has already planned, this will go through a deep restructuring of the Navy and White with a social plan of more than a hundred layoffs. Vincent is “well aware of the social damage that such a destiny would represent, but it would simply be to anticipate what is inevitable”.
Rebuild sportingly around the training center
In this sense, the new management has put its feet in the dish this season by pushing all the club’s big salaries out. And not necessarily with a high class. It’s the least we can say for Koscielny, Costil or Otavio. But for the supporters, the sporting priority is not necessarily there today. For many like Philippe, it will above all be necessary to rebuild “to give up setting up a team of mercenaries from 17 different countries because it is impossible to create a ”club” spirit in these conditions. There must be a hard French core to embody the history of the club”.
Thus, it is time for a large majority of Bordeaux supporters to rely primarily on the training center with a strong identity. Charles:
“I am ready to have local players who come from our regions and for whom the FCGB represents something, even if it means having a more modest level, but at least we will be able to identify with this team and find this state of mind. family that there may have been at the club in the past. »
David, he recalls that “the best players of the club in recent years have been Laborde, Koundé and Tchouaméni (three players trained at the club)”. This is especially true for the second and we must not forget the Brazilian Malcom, the biggest transfer in the history of the Girondins. “It is time to put more resources into training and above all to trust players like Mara, Pirringuel or Louis-Jean, continues David. We can’t make a competitive team only with young people from the club, but we can make it our base. As a reminder, we are champions with Planus, Trémoulinas, Chamakh. »
Bring order to all floors
In this call for contributions, one last thing seems to be close to the hearts of the Bordeaux supporters who have spoken. It is above all linked to recent club news and the “Costil affair”. Reading the testimonials received, we can say that it made an impression. We had already noticed it at the stadium or via social networks. Like Sébastien, many of them want to “put the church back in the center of the village with some supporters because everyone must know how to stay in their place”. For him, “what happened with Florian Brunet (the spokesperson for the Ultramarines) is purely scandalous and his tremendous involvement for so many years gives him no rights over what concerns the professional group”. “JB”, he would like to see “the emergence of a second group of supporters to animate the north turn and act as a counter-power”.
“The UB87 will have to continue their unwavering support but keeping their role as magnificent supporters, because this episode with Benoît Costil was an even more harmful element for the Girondins, because it tarnished the player-supporter relationship and Bordeaux became subject to mockery. everywhere”, summarizes for his part a Thibaud disappointed by the latest events. On this subject, the Ultramarines, without whom the club might never have been saved a year ago, have repeatedly reaffirmed their independence from Gérard Lopez and their desire to always act for the good. of the Girondins.
Finally, note the few remarks on the situation of the Matmut Atlantique. Fabrice’s request to “smooth pedestrian traffic around the stadium by creating footbridges and personalizing the stadium in the club’s colors”. Axel and Sébastien insist on the fact of “making it more attractive through a drastic reduction in the price of places”.
Source: 20minutes
