2023-09-21 13:17:42
This is one of the stories in the history of psychodrama in episodes that OM has been experiencing since Tuesday. And it comes from its president, Pablo Longoria, who spoke at length to La Provence on Wednesday afternoon. In this interview granted to the regional daily, the Spaniard, targeted by several bosses of Marseille supporters groups during a tense meeting on Monday at the training center, claims in particular to have demanded an audit from shareholder Frank McCourt to deny any financial embezzlement on his part in the transfers.
“Last season, insinuations that I had stolen money with transfers reached the McCourt group,” explains Jacques-Henri Eyraud’s successor. To protect myself, I had to ask the McCourt group to audit all our operations by an independent firm, to demonstrate that we were transparent. »
“I gave up private conversations with my mother”
A president who asks the owner of the club he runs on a daily basis to shed light on his own activities on the basis of “insinuations”? A source external to the OM board confirms this version to Parisien-Aujourd’hui in France. The manager of OM apparently decided last year, on his own initiative, to have the club’s financial movements analyzed.
“I gave away all my bank accounts, my phones, my emails,” says Pablo Longoria. It came out that we were clean! I gave it my all, even private conversations with my mother. » The analysis, carried out by a firm whose name has not yet been leaked, has in fact pushed the level of inspection far, without us knowing to what extent the Spaniard must have revealed his private exchanges.
Still many gray areas
The report was completed at the end of summer 2022, before being handed over to Frank McCourt. Since then, a fairly small circle of people has been able to consult this document around which many gray areas still remain.
First, who was behind these accusations of theft of money from transfers? And on what movements precisely? The departure to Juventus Turin, in the form of an exchange with Franco Tongya, of young striker Marley Aké in 2021, when Longoria was sporting director, raised eyebrows in the Italian justice system in the case of capital gains made by the Turin club.
“He took the lead when the volume and perfidy of the attacks increased,” explains a source close to the matter. A way to maintain the confidence of the American shareholder, very far from the daily realities of OM but which Pablo Longoria saw during a meeting this summer in the United States? Or also to give guarantees to those who would look into its often dense transfer windows? On this point, vagueness prevails. There as elsewhere in the Marseille club.
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