Jan brings up a good question about takeovers. My understanding what that a rich person could buy out a person’s stakes in a club but that it doesn’t really happen. It almost happened to Marseille but then financial irregularities in the buyer were discovered, nothing came of it. Plus, I can’t see any billionaires interested in an L1 club since the whole point of such purchases is to make profits, and there are hardly every profits in France.

And those rules as guignol pointed out weren’t made to hamper the clubs. Yet with the recent wave of EPL takeovers, the gap that has already been there through more lucrative TV deals has widened even more by the money of those investors.

Although I’m still unsure about one thing: a French football club could potentially be taken over completely by an investor, right? But it hasn’t happened yet because there are rich families who hold stocks in the clubs and won’t give those away?

i’m making a second post to treat this subject separately.

sports clubs, including the ones our kids play in, are almost entirely “associations loi 1901″… non-profit organizations. for that matter, so are local gardening clubs or sewing circles! until 1975 this was the only organization possible for sports clubs, and today about a third of L1 clubs still hold this status.

nowadays, if payroll is over 5M€ or turnstile receipts over 7.5M€, clubs must create a commercial corporation… either an an SAOS (société anonyme à objet sportif) or an SASP (société anonyme sportive professionnelle). the difference between these? an SAOS may not distribute dividends or pay its officers, and the majority of the shares must be held by the association 1901. an SASP does not have the same constraints, and as such may be a profitmaking entity, but it still must conform to specific regulations; they may not hold shares in another sports society (to avoid conflict of sporting interest) and must have their accounts overseen by the DNCG. note that none of this is in the objective of hampering topflight football clubs, but for assuring honest sports competition in general, and in light of scandals elsewhere (officials on italy, “suitcases” in spain…) it’s far from a bad thing in itself!

i’d like to add that the OVERALL situation in france is not so different from other european countries, but these make a special case for athletes (which doesn’t stop most F1 drivers or ATP players from electing domicile in monaco!) which, in light of how much money footballers make, seems obscene to me. all in all, and especially as concerns the DNCG, i think football would be better off if everyone did things the french way! après nous, le déluge de pognon!

Anyway, France isn’t football crazy like the rest of Europe. With tennis, rugby, and cycling taking up a big portion of the sports market, football is in many ways still growing in popularity. Other than in Marseille, which is a footballing town more than any other in France (also weird, that Paris has only one professional football club). France is kind of like the US in this respect.

Djag: Haha, true. In all the griping we do about poorer salaries in France, footballers are still pretty rich. I remember an interview Belhadj gave a few months ago, when he was still with Sedan – his car is the latest Mercedes on the market, and he has another one too. French footballers definitely aren’t paupers if they are in L1.

Thierry: As much as I gripe about taxes, you’re right, France wouldn’t be France without its taxation. You can’t really argue against a system that takes from the rich and gives to the poor, so to speak.

Thomas: I got tired of posting rumors and thought it was time to do a more substantial post. And footbusiness seemed like a good place to start!

Brian: Buying a large stake in a French football club is really having maybe 10 or 15 percent of the shares. No one person truly owns a huge part of a club. Even Aulas and Dreyfuss, the majority shareholders of Lyon and OM, own only a third of the total shares of their clubs, the remainder owned by smaller groups.

So for the most part, French football clubs tend to stay “family run,” that is, owned by the same group of people for a long time, who appoint presidents and managers as needed.

However, this past year, Robert Louis Dreyfuss did put up his Marseille shares for sale, and there was a guy interested. But then the DNCG got involved, and it turned out that buyer didn’t have all the money available, blah blah. So while the cost of buying a French club is cheaper, it’s more difficult because of all the oversight (the Glazer takeover could never have happened in France).

Jan: I can believe that the Netherlands have a smaller TV audience, but I would think Portugal would have a larger football audience. In any case, without broadcasting, France and Germany would be even further behind, so I’m grateful. In Lyon’s case, CL money is an important addition to the club’s budget.

Corey: I think at this point, it’s useless to hope to compete with the big clubs financially. All Lyon can do is do well in Europe and increasing their income. Hopefully one day, a player won’t mind earning slightly less at Lyon. Let’s hope.

Laurie: Tequila strangely clarifies my thoughts.

I described club ownership in my response to Brian, above. Aulas owns (I think, I have to check) a 32 percent share in OL Groupe. Pathe (owned by Jerome Seydoux, the brother of Lille’s president), is the second majority shareholder, who owns 31 percent. Another 20 percent is owned by smaller companies, and the remaining shares were the ones recently sold on the stock market to be owned by individuals.

And I agree, I think the Offside is a great way to make people interested in a club. If I was able to convince just one person to sit down and watch a Lyon game, all the long hours of blogging will have finally paid off.

PS. It’s awesome that you have a double degree in finance and in French football, both of which probably come in more handy than what I’ll get my degree in (virology, of all things).

Julien: I’m glad you enjoyed it. I know I always gripe about Lyon’s finances, so I thought maybe I should post some information about it. It was also easier writing this because I remember reading a lot of this stuff last February, when Lyon first floated.