Winter sales are coming
©IMAGO
The financial regulator for French football clubs DNCG has imposed a reporting ban and a salary cap on Olympique Lyon in order to get its debts, which have recently increased by around 50 million euros to 505 million euros, under control. If this does not succeed, there is a risk of forced relegation to Ligue 2. This means that the fifth-placed team will not be allowed to sign new players in the winter and will probably part with professionals with a high market value in order to raise money.
OL President John Textor, who answered questions from the DNCG on Friday, commented on the situation in a press conference: “Some people will try to exploit this news. If the clubs don’t want to buy our players at the right price, we simply won’t sell them to them.” Textor expects OL to generate over 50 million euros from player sales in the winter transfer window. How much the club has to reduce its debts has not been communicated – wage payments are to be reduced from around 128 million to 74 million euros per season.
“Some discussions about players have started with lower fees, but we will sell the players at the right price,” said Textor, who took over the club at the end of 2022. Since then, around 250 million euros have been invested in new signings, while player sales brought 180 million euros into the coffers – last summer Lyon suffered a transfer loss of 109 million euros.
Textor continued: “We have 29 players in the first team. Ideally there should be 23 or 24 players. There are six players too many. Some of them didn’t leave and we wanted to bring in more people to be stronger.” One of the most sought-after orienteering professionals is home-grown Rayan Cherki (21), who, together with newcomer Georges Mikautadze (24), is also the most valuable player in the squad. Cherki was linked with BVB and PSG, among others, last summer, but decided to stay and extended his contract until 2026.
“He has a higher value today than in the summer,” said Textor, referring to Cherki, whose market value was reduced from €25 million to €20 million in October. The club boss says: “Cherki should stay in January.” Players of interest to other clubs are Gift Orban (22), Malick Fofana (19) and Ernest Nuamah (21), who OL last year for a total of 62 million euros from Belgium fetched. Orel Mangala, who is on loan to Everton, could bring in 40 million euros per clause.
Textor, who is now faced with the balancing act between the sporting side with possible qualification for the Champions League and dealing with the sanctions, was not very enthusiastic about the actions of the financial regulator: “The fact that the DNCG tells me how I have to run my business , seems clumsy to me. In the past there was confidentiality. I don’t know why things were handled differently now. We didn’t get an official letter, they just told us that they didn’t understand some numbers and I think we answered them in the right way. Now it’s so strict… We’re surprised that this statement hasn’t remained confidential. Was that necessary?”
