2023-11-29 00:18:05
Glasses on his nose and a big smile, it’s as if John Textor hadn’t just come out of a two-hour meeting with doubtless very financial overtones with the accountants of the National Directorate of Management Control (DNCG), the body responsible for monitoring the finances of French professional football clubs.
The majority shareholder and president of Lyon stopped, leaving the LFP headquarters where the body’s offices are located, at the microphone of RMC Sport. “I enjoyed the meeting,” he said, very confidently. We were good on the numbers. It has been shown that the first quarter of the next fiscal year will be very good. Everyone knows what we did on player sales. We also transmitted the very good figures for debt refinancing. The rating agencies think we are heading in the right direction. »
Last July, the DNCG decided to “regulate the payroll and transfer compensation (transfers)” for the Rhone club, which had not convinced itself of its medium-term solvency. Since then, the sales of Bradley Barcola to PSG, Castello Lukeba to Leipzig and Romain Faivre to Bournemouth have brought in almost 90 million euros into Lyon’s coffers.
A hope of recruiting this winter
“We learned a lot during our first visit,” continued Textor. When you buy a club, you tend to think that you can do whatever you want. The DNCG forced us to make decisions that were good for the club, like making sales, and I really think the players who arrived are as good as the ones who left. So I think that the firmness of the DNCG during the first hearing was beneficial for us. »
Textor conceded that if it is “unusual” for the DNCG to lift this type of sanctions, “that’s what we asked them”, in order to be able to buy players this winter and why not extricate themselves from this sad 18th and last place in Ligue 1 in which the club has been stuck for many weeks.
“We would like to invest intelligently but significantly during the next transfer window. All teams have shortcomings and we have them too, of course. We’ll see. Our progress is impressive. In particular the work on the debt. Today we have liquidity. Which is very good. We hope they will recognize it. » The DNCG’s decision should be taken fairly quickly, as of this Tuesday evening according to RMC Sport.
In the evening, the League communicated the decision taken concerning OL “as part of the review of the situation of the clubs for the 2023-2024 sports season”: “Staying the decision pending additional elements requested to the club by the DNCG”.
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