2023-09-20 16:56:59
The news broke just before the summer, without causing any major stir: on June 16, ASM Clermont Auvergne announced the entry into the capital of the Michelin group, the manufacturer thus becoming a 100% shareholder of the Auvergne rugby club. The total takeover responds to a crisis situation, with ASM showing a deficit of 6.5 million euros over a single season. But could it be otherwise, between the club and the tire giant, emblems of the region with closely linked destinies?
“In difficult times, all eyes are always on us, and that’s normaljudge Jean-Claude Pats, president of the ASM since May 2023 and personnel director of the Michelin group. The club risked relegation to the lower division, or worse, outright disappearance. This was obviously inconceivable. » Michelin therefore put a total of 11 million euros on the table to recapitalize the club. “Who else in the region would have been capable of such an intervention?continues the executive. We have done our duty. »
A centuries-old history
It’s hard not to honor tradition and centuries-old history. The ASM, originally, was the Michelin Sports Association, born in 1911 from the will of Marcel Michelin, the son of the co-founder of the company, anxious to offer his workers a framework specific to relations healthy and supportive social systems. The club is multi-sport, but the rugby section was created early on, at the same time as the Marcel-Michelin stadium was inaugurated which would soon become “the Michelin” for everyone.
Identification with its owner is obvious, even if a 1922 law prohibits sports clubs from bearing the name of an industrial or commercial brand, the ASM then becoming the Montferrandaise Sports Association. Marcel Michelin will in any case remain in charge until his death in deportation in 1945, in Buchenwald. And executives from the company will succeed one another at its head while the team gains strength, still an unhappy finalist in 1970, 1978 and 1994.
The arrival of professionalism in the mid-1990s inaugurated a new phase between the club and the manufacturer. The rugby section becomes a SASP (professional sports limited company), 99% owned by ASM omnisports. She is still very widely supported by the group. But the demands of professionalism still require change. “In 2004, the club became ASM Clermont Auvergne and its new president, René Fontès, decided to open it to his economic area, because monodependence on Michelin was neither suitable nor healthy,” says Jean-Claude Pats.
A model to reinvent
Michelin remains the main financier, but local and regional partners are gradually flocking, and even more so after the long-awaited title of French champion in 2010. The link between Michelin and the club may then seem to be diluted, with President Fontès even mentioning the possibility that one day the presidency of the ASM could go to someone outside Michelin. It won’t happen. Supporters of the “Yellow Army” obviously remain faithful to the colors they share with Michelin. On big match days, the famous Bibendum shows his good cheeks on the pitch and many employees give voice in the stands, even if the group, which has 132,000 people including only 9,000 in Clermont, does not use rugby as an internal communication tool.
The recent takeover proves that the link was hardly undone. It also reveals the fragility of a rugby economy still on the edge, even for a solidly established team and champion for the second time in 2017. “The club model of a company does not seem more valid today than yesterdayunderlines Jean-Claude Pats. We are not seeking exclusive ownership. We are working on a three-year project to get everything straightened out, and over six years to properly restart the machine. There are two standards in Auvergne, ASM and Michelin. Whatever happens, we will always attach importance to the sustainability of this club. »
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