The Greater Belfort urban community has announced its intention to inject one million euros into the project to take over FC Sochaux-Montbéliard (FCSM) from Romain Peugeot, great-grandson of the club’s founder, we learned Friday morning during a press conference.
The club, owned by the Chinese group Nenking, is on the verge of bankruptcy. According to FCSM president Frankie Yau, Nenking is ready to sell the club for 12 million euros. “We spoke on the phone (with Romain Peugeot) this morning,” confirmed Damien Meslot, president (LR) of Grand Belfort. The community must leave during the day “a letter of intent” confirming a commitment “up to one million euros”, in the form of a subsidy.
“A certain number of offers of recoveries disappeared one after the other”, commented Damien Meslot. “The most serious is that of Romain Peugeot, the great-grandson of the founder”. He has already created a company to carry the takeover and a cooperative society of collective profit-sharing (Scic) is in the works, according to the elected official.
According to the newspaper L’Equipe, Mr. Peugeot has made a firm offer to buy the club from Nenking. “I do not wish to comment on this information”, however declared Romain Peugeot. The Grand Belfort grant could then be transformed into an equity investment. On the other hand, Damien Meslot specifies that in the event of success of this recovery, the community will not intervene every year. And she doesn’t want to get involved in sports management. “We will have a look at financial management,” he warned, however.
Damien Meslot does not want to let a “historic” club “disappear”. The FCSM is an element of “attractiveness of the metropolitan pole” and “part of the regional history”. Romain Peugeot “has six to seven million euros around him,” said Damien Meslot, and he is still looking for investors to raise the sum necessary to buy the club.
Local entrepreneurs are present. If the Chinese owner agrees to sell, it will then be necessary to convince the financial authorities of French football of the viability of the project. There is “emergency”, insisted Damien Meslot. “I call on the other local authorities to come to our side and to get involved”, he added, referring to Pays de Montbéliard Agglomeration (PMA), the Burgundy-Franche-Comté Regional Council and the Departmental Councils of Doubs and the Territory of Belfort.
Contacts have been established between PMA and Romain Peugeot, confirms an internal source in the community. After finishing 9th in L2, the club has for the moment been relegated administratively to National. He could tumble to National 3 and lose his pro status.
