[ad_1]
Gerard Lopez has offered Ligue 1 leaders Lille to Callisto, a subsidiary of the Merlyn Companions funding fund, a supply near the membership advised AFP on Friday.
The brand new homeowners have put in Olivier Letang, a 48-year-old former sporting director at Paris Saint-Germain and president of Rennes, as CEO.
Lopez, a Spanish-Luxembourgish businessman, purchased Lille from Michel Seydoux in January 2017.
They completed eleventh within the desk that season, dropped to seventeenth the next yr however have since completed second and fourth.
This season they lead the league after 15 matches and have progressed from the group phases of the Champions League for less than the second time, the earlier event was in 2006.
“I’ve achieved my purpose and I consider that it’s now time for a brand new proprietor to take over and for me to focus on different sporting endeavours,” stated Lopez in an announcement issued by the membership.
Lopez additionally leaves the membership deeply in debt.
He borrowed greater than 225 million euros (275 million {dollars}) from Elliott Administration throughout his first months in workplace. He was pushed in direction of the exit by the American funding fund, to which he had repaid lower than half of this sum.
“Given the current difficulties in Ligue 1 and specifically the uncertainty surrounding the TV rights contract for the French championship, it is necessary that the LOSC is owned by a good proprietor with recognised monetary power akin to Merlyn,” Lopez stated.
Luxembourg-based Merlyn stated within the assertion that it targeted on “long-term” investments in European belongings.
It stated Lille’s “excellent debt might be considerably lowered and new fairness might be injected into the membership.”
Merlyn stated it had employed Letang as CEO as a result of it wished “to construct a brand new, skilled and robust management inside the membership.”
Beneath Letang, Rennes beat PSG within the French Cup remaining in 2019 for his or her first trophy in 48 years. When Letang left the membership in February, saying it was in opposition to his needs, Rennes had been third in Ligue 1. They ended the coronavirus-curtailed season nonetheless in third, their highest top-flight end.
He’s a former second division midfielder who was described by former colleagues as a workaholic and an unyielding however extremely competent boss. He has a fame for feuding with the coaches he hires.
“My intention is for the membership to achieve its full potential and I’ll be sure that LOSC is properly managed from a sporting and monetary viewpoint,” Letang stated within the Lille assertion.
bur-pb/td
[ad_2]
supply
