Fenway Sports Group (FSG), the multi-sport investment group that owns iconic English Premier League side Liverpool, has ended its interest in acquiring French fallen giants Bordeaux just days after entering into talks with the club’s current owners.
Last week, FSG confirmed that it had entered preliminary talks with Bordeaux’s current owner Gerard Lopez, and was interested in acquiring the club.
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However, Bordeaux has revealed that FSG has distanced itself from the purchase, with the club stating that the deal fell through due to issues surrounding “the significant cost of the stadium in the years to come, but also by the general economic context of French soccer.”
French soccer is in a dire financial situation despite the signing this week of a new domestic media rights deal with DAZN and BeIN, with as many as eight clubs thought to be at serious risk of bankruptcy prior to that deal due to the lack of certainty over the league’s future revenue streams.
With Ligue 2 being in a similarly perilous financial situation to Ligue 1, and the third tier an effective purgatory, FSG likely weighed the opportunity cost of purchasing Bordeaux as too high giving the diminishing returns of French soccer.
Costs surrounding Bordeaux’s stadium, the 42,115 capacity Nouveau Stade de Bordeaux, also played a major role in warding off FSG investment.
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By GlobalDataOpened in 2015 and built for €183 million ($196 million), the stadium (known as Matmut Atlantique for sponsorship reasons) has attracted international praise and hosted events at UEFA Euro 2016, the 2023 Rugby World Cup, and will host soccer at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
Despite the quality of the venue itself, the stadium runs at a heavy loss, with the club losing over €3 million per season in its first three years of operation, around 300% larger than expected, and is a major financial drain on the club.
All this leaves Bordeaux in financial limbo. The club, who finished 12th in Ligue 2 in the 2023-24 season, is facing forced relegation to the third tier by the country’s DNCG financial monitoring body due to its imperiled financial state.
The relegation had been confirmed by the DNCG but Bordeaux appealed the ruling, presenting investment from FSG as a potential savior for the club prompting the DNCG to allow a stay of execution while the investment was finalized.
Now without that investment, initially reported to total up to €100 million, Bordeaux must appeal their relegation without FSG’s backing.
Bordeaux said in its statement that the club and its ownership are “putting all their energy into finalizing a financing plan for the 2024-2025 season in preparation for the appeal hearing.”
Without guaranteed financing for the 2024-25 season, the six-time champions of Ligue 1 would be mired in the third tier for the first time in its post-war history, a league with little in the way of financial compensation that would likely see Bordeaux with little chance of emerging from its financial quagmire.
