Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Des pains, du vin, du Boursin: French football 2017-2018

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

    Des pains, du vin, du Boursin: French football 2017-2018

    [un pain: colloquial for a punch in the face]

    No thread on French football 2017-18 by the looks of it, so I’m creating this one (the last one seems to be French football 2015-2016, as it has one post on the current season I’m hyperlinking it here).

    Below is the post I wrote at 1am about the serious incidents that marred the Lille-Montpellier incidents last night, with an addendum on the sanctions the French football authorities could take against Lille (emergency meeting on Thursday apparently).



    All hell broke loose too tonight at Stade Pierre Mauroy at the end of the Lille-Montpellier game (1-1), very ugly scenes at the final whistle, a few hundred Dogues supporters invaded the pitch and chanted "Si on descend, on vous descend" (if we go down, we’ll kill you – currently second from bottom) with some of these fucking cretins even appearing to hit or aim kicks at several of their own players (+ also possibly members of staff) as they were running to the tunnel protected by security and police. The incidents lasted over 20 minutes apparently according to reports from supporters in the stadium. The CRS (anti-riot police) were nearby (due to protests before the game, and they're often at games or in the vicinity anyway) and called to intervene, I hope they gave those yobs some of their usual dose of TLC in spades.



    A great shame really as only recently it was a successful and well-run club under Michel Seydoux, the Lille owner-chairman from 2012 to January 2017 (and incidentally Léa Seydoux’s great uncle) but since businessman Gerard Lopez took over, it’s been a shambles (Lille is severely in the red, debts north of €50m apparently, hit with transfer ban just before Christmas).

    At the beginning of the season, the LOSC was aiming for a Champions League’s spot and spent accordingly (about €70m on 17 new players – mind, 22 left in the close season…). The big problem is that they also recruited uber-maverick Marcelo Bielsa, not your average cheapo Ligue 1 manager: he is on ~500K net a month (that includes his staff of 4).

    El Loco was duly sacked in November-December (bizarre protracted dismissal, lasted 3 weeks) for poor results and other "issues". He'd certainly wasted no time in pissing off people when he arrived last summer, straight away he banned a number of senior players to the ressies, had run-ins with journalists etc. Bielsa is now asking Lille for €18m as compensation but should get in the region of €12m. He was replaced by Christophe Galtier at the end of December 2017 (who did very well at Saint-Étienne for nearly 10 seasons).

    The ultras among the DVE supporters’ group (a number of these ultras are said to be close to the far right) are suspected of having coordinated the invasion (it wasn’t spontaneous, trouble has been brewing for weeks now, they’d tried before to invade the pitch this season, 3 months ago). Or maybe they were just super excited by Steve Bannon’s presence nearby.

    The whole thing will be looked at by the LFP later this week. According to RMC radio station, as a matter of priority as these incidents are considered serious (threats and physical violence on players, if confirmed by the investigations), the LFP could dock Lille points (directly, not as a suspended sentence as is usually the case), close down a whole stand (where the DVE supporters gather) or/and slap a "huit clos" order on Lille (matches played behind closed doors) for 2-3 games or until the end of the season (another 4 home League games) or force them to relocate, all this on top of a substantial fine. This said, these incidents being Lille's worst in a long time if not the worst ever, the French League officials could take into account Lille's good disciplinary record and not come down on them like a ton of bricks.
    Last edited by Pérou Flaquettes; 11-03-2018, 13:46.

    #2
    Lopez has driven LOSC off a cliff at a greater speed than his version of Lotus could ever manage.

    Comment


      #3
      Appalling footage from this Lille-Montpellier on Twitter, eg (sorry, don’t know how to embed Tweets):

      https://twitter.com/alex_indahouse1/...522291712?s=21

      The commentator: "[…] Supporters, who only a few days ago vowed to stick with the players until the end of the season, are now assaulting players such as Nicolas Pépé. […] And what is that girl doing?!!! She’s just pushed a player! Supporters are hitting players, kicking them, it’s total pandemonium, fights breaking out everywhere, people of all ages, not just youngsters, some look well past 40".

      Comment


        #4
        Le voilà

        https://twitter.com/alex_indahouse1/status/972581735522291712

        Comment


          #5
          Originally posted by ursus arctos View Post
          Lopez has driven LOSC off a cliff at a greater speed than his version of Lotus could ever manage.

          He looks dodgy as hell, and that should have been picked up by the French authorities when he bought the club about 15 months ago (more on this below).

          It was always well known that Lopez would never win the Nobel Prize in Honesty but it now sounds like he’s worse than first thought, especially on the financial side of things, i.e club accounts for season 2016-2017 still not published (Lille has asked the French authorities for at least one extension – and granted by the DNGC and LFP), the debt and loan situations, the rather dubious provenance of the funds euphemistically described as "des montages complexes et opaques" (multi-tiered financial set-ups) by the French media.

          I really don’t think the French authorities are competent enough to investigate and probe into these very complex financial structures, a bit like when the Premier League had to start outsourcing their financial investigations on clubs to financial law cabinets (specialising in this sort of dodgy offshore structures) to make sense of these increasingly complex financial set-ups, roughly from the mid-2000s with the creation of the "fit and proper person test" and other checks from 2004 (when they started to get "ethical"), with the Thaksin Shinawatra era at Manchester City and so on.

          All requests for interviews from the French media* have been repeatedly turned down by Gérard Lopez.

          (*notably by France3 region journalists, https://france3-regions.francetvinfo...auts-de-france. This is a good one: https://france3-regions.francetvinfo...b-1370533.html, point # 3: L’ombre du "fonds vautour" Elliott et "l'exemple" du Milan AC. LOSC : un fonds américain et une offsore des Îles Caïmans au capital de la holding du club)

          Comment


            #6
            Originally posted by ursus arctos View Post
            OK, merci... but how do you do it? (tu fais comment bordel ?)

            Comment


              #7
              1) In Twitter, select "Copy Link to Tweet" (the top choice in the drop down that appears when one clicks on the downward facing arrow in the top right corner of a Tweet).

              2) On OTF, click "Go Advanced" at the bottom of the Quick Reply box

              3) In the expanded reply box, paste the link to Twitter between "Tweet" tags (in square brackets, with a backwards slash in the second one, just as with any other formatting tag).

              No, there is no button for this. Yes, one does need to "Go Advanced"
              I need to post this somewhere, rather than re-creating it all the time.

              Comment


                #8
                If the DNGC were in the ball they would have said non as soon as Lopez introduced himself as a “Spanish/Luxembourgeois businessman”.

                Comment


                  #9
                  Thanks.

                  https://www.usatoday.com/story/sport...ille/32833395/

                  Reports emerging from regional journalists (TBC) that Gérard Lopez recently met the leaders of the supporters' group mainly responsible for the unrest and violence, The DVE, and that he may have been told in no uncertain terms that there was a serious threat of violence erupting after that game in case of poor result or something of that nature (on the face of it, not a bad result for Lille, 1-1 versus 7th-placed Montpellier, but ultras "not happy" to see their team "capitulating" in the second half so hell-bent on creating havoc. What a bunch of revolting idiots. It is now almost certain that it was premeditated).

                  If this is prior knowledge element is established, the French League officials will now be very keen to examine if security measures were adequately implemented in the light of the club knowing of possible serious unrest, in addition of the official (peaceful, apparently) protests and march that took place before the game at about 6pm.

                  If the DNGC were in the ball they would have said non as soon as Lopez introduced himself as a “Spanish/Luxembourgeois businessman”.

                  They're rarely on the ball, that goes for all French football authorities (eg, the superb France 2 Cash Investigation of 2013 on French football demonstrated that in spades for over 90 minutes - this particular prog used to be available on YT but I've just checked and it's not there anymore. Could be on France 2 site, not sure. As an aside, Cash Investigation is one the handful of proper investigative programmes on French TV but it has ruffled so many feathers - politicians, lobbies etc. - since its inception in 2012 that it's now facing an uncertain future, very sad).
                  Last edited by Pérou Flaquettes; 11-03-2018, 15:40.

                  Comment


                    #10
                    There is an interesting profile of Élise Lucet in Monde this weekend.

                    Comment


                      #11
                      Yes, she rose to fame quite late (on the back of Cash Investigation, recently then) but is now very popular. Well, with the general public, not with the powers that be.

                      The clinical and forensic way she ripped to shreds the big boss of French football (Noël Le Graët) in that 2013 Cash Investigation programme in a 15-minute interview with him was a thing of absolute beauty. It was done in a very calm, charming way, it really was priceless. Le Graët is very weak (a yes-man basically) and didn’t know what to say, he kept contradicting himself etc. and Lucet eventually got him to admit that yes, basically, the French authorities are bent, that football agents and money men run the whole show etc. I'll always remember him nodding in agreement!

                      Course-poursuite et Fédé en panique : l’excellent « Cash investigation » sur le foot

                      Many mainstream football journalists (so not only part of the football industry but totally propping it up), such as the most popular among them, Pierre Ménès, hate her guts.

                      "Pierre Ménès s'en prend (encore) à Elise Lucet : J'ai un peu honte de faire le même métier qu'elle"

                      Which can only mean one thing of course: Lucet is excellent and extremely professional, everything that Ménès and his ilk aren't. But people like Ménès are influential and sadly represent the majority of football "fans" in France, he really is ridiculous popular (2,5m Twitter followers, an income of €300K+ a year etc. – to spout platitudes and lies about football and rant against referees all year long, not bad).
                      Last edited by Pérou Flaquettes; 11-03-2018, 17:50.

                      Comment


                        #12
                        The Reims municipality has just launched a crowd-funding campaign to erect a bronze statue of Raymond Kopa outside the Auguste-Delaune stadium (Reims municipality will meet 80-90% of the total cost though, estimated to be ~€250K).



                        I’m too young to remember Kopa as a player but there’s one little anecdote about him that’s always been etched in my mind.

                        My dad, in his eighties now and a lifelong Kopa fan, was always going on about him when I was a teenager in the 1970s. At the time, the French national team was no great shakes and had been indifferent for a long time (since the late 1950s). So, when French TV announced one day in 1976 that Raymond Kopa had decided to come out of retirement and save Les Bleus from likely ignominy in the forthcoming game, I was quite ecstatic although a little surprised: Kopa was 45.

                        However, I was reassured when the evening news report showed him in training and my initial concerns were further assuaged when the national coach, Michel Hidalgo, explained that the squad was so depleted by injuries that he’d had to think outside the box and well, Kopa was still playing with the Reims ressies [he wasn’t but I didn’t know that] would therefore be match-fit and could be a great asset for a game or two etc. I thought "Oh well, that’s strange but why not after all".

                        It was still bugging me so I asked my dad what he thought of this odd idea, and dad said: "Kopa was truly exceptional son, I’m sure he’s still good enough to play for France and lead the line, don’t worry, I’m sure he’ll do an excellent job."

                        As he was Dad, the fount of all knowledge, I concluded that it was a decent idea after all.

                        Then I fucking realised: it was April 1st… DOH!!!!!

                        I turned to my dad and went: "You b…...! You knew didn’t you, you knew it was an April’s Fool prank, eh?"

                        "Of course I did son, and I can’t believe you fell for it!"

                        We looked at each other and burst out laughing. Boy, did we laugh over that one...

                        Last edited by Pérou Flaquettes; 15-03-2018, 20:06.

                        Comment


                          #13
                          I will throw in a thousand euro if they put his real name on the plinth.

                          Comment


                            #14
                            Have they built the Just Fontaine fountain yet?

                            Comment


                              #15
                              Would work well in Casablanca

                              Comment


                                #16
                                All aboard the Auxerre-Paris train with the one and only Guy Roux.

                                http://www.lemonde.fr/football/artic...9_1616938.html


                                Sometimes I look at my Légion d’Honneur [France's highest distinction] and wonder what I ever did to deserve it. But then I remember that I was Cantona’s manager for seven years. I owe Cantona my Légion d’Honneur.
                                Under me, players were banned from flaunting their wealth. Djibril Cissé was forbidden to use his Ferrari in town for instance, so he’d drive to the stadium in a small city car.
                                Love it.

                                Comment


                                  #17
                                  Nice one (we talk of a "nasty piece of work" in BE as you probably know but it obviously has a different meaning).

                                  In France, we’d probably say of Vairelles that "he hasn’t invented the 2-litre can" ("il n’a pas inventé le bidon de deux litres", or the more commonly-used "il n'a pas inventé le fil à couper le beurre" – the butter slicer –, but I prefer the bidon one personally as a bidon is far more basic than a butter slicer which, to my simple mind, sounds pretty sophisticated. Or as the Aussies say, he isn’t the coldest beer in the fridge, I’ll spare you the dozens of BE equivalent, I take it you know them).

                                  Vairelles is mainly remembered for a heated Arsenal-Lens (0-1) of Nov. 1998 and the ridiculous Lee Dixon’s act of gamesmanship that got Vairelles sent off. Fucking UEFA even suspended Vairelles for 1 game although it was clear on the replay that Dixon grossly simulated (doing a Rivaldo and writhing in pain on the ground, pretending to have been elbowed or something). Who knows, maybe this terrible bit of injustice fucked our Tony up for ever (not).

                                  Ray Parlour kicked the shit out of Cyril Rool too in that game, but that was totally commendable of Parlour, whatever Rool did or didn’t do I’m sure he deserved what he got, and then some, at the very least for "l’ensemble de son œuvre" shall we say (Rool: 25 red cards and nearly 200 yellows in French football).

                                  https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/...d-1187464.html

                                  https://www.theguardian.com/football...wsstory.sport1

                                  Comment


                                    #18
                                    Obituary.

                                    Henri Michel

                                    Henri Michel dead: French football legend who led country to semi finals of 1986 World Cup passes away aged 70




                                    https://twitter.com/FCNantes/status/988837474725126144

                                    https://twitter.com/FCNantes/status/988823885750546432

                                    https://twitter.com/FCNantes/status/988804446539993088

                                    Comment


                                      #19
                                      Obituary (2).

                                      André Lerond.

                                      Are now left from the Sweden 1958 French dream team/squad: Dominique Colonna (goalkeeper), François Remetter (gk), Robert Mouynet, (right back), Bernard Chiarelli (midfielder), Raymond Bellot (forward), Yvon Douis (forward), Just Fontaine (forward), Roger Piantoni (forward), Maryan Wisniewski (forward).

                                      https://twitter.com/OL/status/983056184528834562

                                      https://twitter.com/OL_Plus/status/983050158471614466

                                      Comment


                                        #20
                                        .

                                        Comment


                                          #21
                                          National(3rd tier): French Cup finalists Les Herbiers relegated to fourth tier

                                          Les Herbiers are having a celebration on Saturday at their Massabielle ground to commemorate their cup run.
                                          What a strange roller-coaster of a week it’ll have been for this small club.

                                          Red Star and Béziers go up, Grenoble cocked up last night at home in front of 15,000 spectators and will now have to play two-legged promotion play-offs vs neighbouring Bourg-Péronnas to get promoted to Ligue 2.

                                          Final League table.


                                          Ligue 2

                                          Last night was also the last round of fixtures in Ligue 2 with lots of relegation and promotion permutations at work, 37 goals in 10 games.

                                          The lowdown:

                                          Reims and Nîmes go up to Ligue 1 (both already promoted before yesterday).

                                          Ajaccio, Brest and Le Havre in the promotion play-offs

                                          Bourg-Péronnas in the relegation play-offs vs Grenoble.

                                          Pathetic scenes of violence last night at the Stade des Alpes in Grenoble just after the final whistle with some GF38 ultras invading the pitch and attacking opposition staff and players, throwing missiles and flares at them etc. Grenoble very likely be fined and forced to play their play-off home game behind closed doors.

                                          From: http://sport24.lefigaro.fr/football/...renoble-908670

                                          https://twitter.com/bleu_isere/status/995009220100743169

                                          https://twitter.com/SebastienRiglet/status/995007769446092800

                                          Comment


                                            #22
                                            And it would be remiss of me of course not to mention the return of historic Nîmes Olympique to the top flight. A momentous season for the Crocodiles Nîmois as they were last seen in the top flight in 1993. They then yo-yoed between second and third tier, with some real shit during that time – 4 years ago, big scandal of rigged matches, similar to Tapie-OM’s match-fixing scandal vs Valenciennes in mai 1993. Some magic moments too, like in 1996 when the 3rd-division Crocodiles knocked out 3 top-flight clubs to reach the Coupe de France final.

                                            Except this being paupers Nîmes – not skint anymore as it’s been taken over (by Franco-Lebanese businessman Rani Assaf who’s got ambitious plans for the club, new stadium etc. however, they didn't "buy" their promotion, only had the 12th budget of Ligue 2) but it was at the time of the scandal – the then rogue chairman, Jean-Marc Conrad and the main shareholder were offering to their opponents… crates of wine (fucking piquette des Costières I bet, bunch of cheapstakes).



                                            A decade ago, Conrad presided over the miraculous rise of minnow Arles-Avignon, fucking Lourdes-like, this tiny club with attendances of ~2,000 went from from 4th tier to Ligue 1 – reached in 2010 – in 4 seasons flat! Was this phenomenal achievement for such a small club totally above board? Of course not: the sporting director of Arles-Avignon was given a 10-month suspended sentence for contacting opposition players before games but investigators could pin nothing down on Conrad was pushed out of Arles-Avignon soon after. The club was dissolved two years ago.

                                            This time, in the case of Nîmes Olympique in 2013-14, CID has got wiretaps to establish beyond doubt illegal practices. They were docked 8 points at the time but the trial will take place next month in Paris (beginning of June).

                                            Keep an eye next year on 21 y-old Franco-Turkish striker Umut Bozok, 24 goals for Nîmes this season (after being top goalscorer in third division last year with Marseille Consolat). Currently in the U21 Turkish team. He was expertly seconded by Moroccan international Rachid Alioui, 17goals in Ligue 2 this season.
                                            Umut Bozok is a great pianist too!

                                            Comment


                                              #23
                                              If UEFA hadn't changed their rule about Cup finallists getting into Europe, would Les Herbiers have been the first ever fourth-tier side to play in Europe? Hell, would they have been the first third tier ones had they stayed up?

                                              Comment


                                                #24
                                                Ah good question, probably more a Q for Alex or Ursus and the many other experts on all things European cups here. Fourth tier, probably not, but third tier, maybe. Didn't a third-tier Polish club a few years ago compete in the Europa League?

                                                I'm not really au fait on the EL regulations and qualification requirements for the main leagues (plus, it's changing from next season) but I think that the 6th-placed team in Ligue 1 now play in the EL instead of the Coupe de France finalist. It wasn't always the case I believe, as you point out, I think that about 12-15 years ago, the cup finalist was given an entry into the EL, but again I may be wrong.

                                                Comment


                                                  #25
                                                  Worth noting that on the day Les Herbiers fell from the National, US Quevilly, their predecessors as a third tier team who contested the final of the Coupe de France (and who subsequently absorbed the remains of FC Rouen), were relegated from Ligue 2 to the National.

                                                  UEFA allows the domestic federations significant leeway on the allocation of European places, which explains many (but not all) of the changes in recent years.

                                                  Comment

                                                  Working...
                                                  X