The dark hours that two monuments of French football are going through, l’AS Nancy-Lorraine and the FC Sochaux-Montbeliard , illustrate the limits of the model of these investment funds which engage massively in the French market. Their interest is above all financial, incidentally sporting. To make their investments profitable, their levers are also arithmetically cold. First exploitation, through merchandising, ticketing, TV rights. The interest then of taking a desperate club to straighten it out and make a substantial capital gain on its resale. Finally, the transfer jackpot. According to FIFA’s annual report, 20,209 players changed clubs in 2022. That’s an increase of 12% in one year, generating €5.8 billion in compensation paid! So it’s not the record for 2019 (6.6 billion €), but it’s twice as much as in 2013. This strategy of spidering these funds hanging from the web of football also benefits from blind consent national management control departments. They see in these foreign investors, like those who melted on the ASNL and the FCSM, a financial capacity to pay off debts and balance cash. A short-term view. Because a club is above all a collective story, the embodiment of values. In Nancy, the great epics are not built on financial arguments but with players, Platinum in Hadji , which gave a soul to the red and white. In Sochaux, in the cradle of Peugeot, we often say to ourselves “if the team wins, the whole Pays de Montbéliard is doing well”. In these hard times, the FCSM has always been able to count on its supporters. So everyone will have their own idea of the deafening silence of the Peugeot family and Stellantis. Not a word, nor the slightest regret since the distressing sale of 2015. The club is not just a product, it is also part of their history and their identity.
#Editorial #Football #mirage #investment #funds
