Gérard Lopez sells the Girondins de Bordeaux to the Park Bench fund

The supporters of the Girondins de Bordeaux awaited the news while biting their nails, the phone at hand, grabbing it at the slightest notification. She arrived this Wednesday morning: Gérard Lopez and the Girondins de Bordeaux, it’s over. The Spanish-Luxembourgish businessman sold the club, which he had owned since July 2021, to the British investment fund Park Bench for a symbolic euro.

The sigh of relief is unparalleled. The threat of judicial liquidation loomed over the Girondins. The buyers must appear before the Regional Management Control Commission of the Ligue de Football Nouvelle-Aquitaine (LFNA) in the coming days in order to validate a budget for the 2026-27 season of Regional 1 (sixth division). The commercial court will also be a step. How could one of the jewels of French football have fallen so low?

Lopez closed a failure which is not his first. The 54-year-old man had already detained LOSC between January 2017 and December 2020. He left a debt of more than 120 million euros and was, in 2024, sentenced to ten months in prison for “complicity in the illegal exercise of the profession of sports agent”. Before that, he had already experienced difficulties at the head of Lotus, a Formula 1 team, between 2009 and 2015.

In July 2021, his arrival on the banks of the Gironde was nevertheless welcome. The American company King Street had abandoned the club and a bankruptcy filing was rumored. Lopez is then the savior. Thanks to him, Bordeaux remained in Ligue 1. A disastrous season later, the club was relegated. It's painful, but it's nothing compared to what happens next. The scapular club would spend the next four years being talked about more for its financial problems than for its sporting performances.

Every summer, the same refrain: the club is in debt, the coffers are empty, administrative demotion is looming, bankruptcy cannot be ruled out, and Lopez reinjects money at the last moment. “We no longer understand, everyone is tired. We carry this club around like an old pair of socks,” criticized Alain Giresse, record holder for matches (591) and goals (181), in Sud-Ouest at the beginning of the month, accusing the businessman of having “brought (the club) to its destruction”.

Because since goodbye to L1 in 2022, the Girondins have been demoted to National 2 (fourth level) in 2024, thus losing their professional status, then to Regional 1 this summer. “94 million debts, 400 companies not paid, 86 employees laid off... The ace of finance has spoken”, tackled Bixente Lizarazu, another former Bordeaux glory. Along this path of the cross, disappointing recruits, outdated coaches and a change of logo have raised the hackles of supporters. Lopez's legacy finds its symbolism in this elimination from the Coupe de France last Sunday by Angoulême (fourth division) with a heavy score (1-5) and by wearing a red and white jersey loaned by the French Football Federation, due to lack of official equipment.

Its decline, perhaps finally slowed down, seemed interminable, also because rumors of a sale abounded. The company Fenway Sports Group, owner of Liverpool, and a duo composed of former German goalkeeper Oliver Kahn and former Marseille president Jacques-Henri Eyraud, had not concluded the deal. Lopez held on, blamed the former glories who criticized him instead of investing in their turn, placed the blame on the authorities who would like to kill the Girondins.