• OGC Nice, the last French representative in the European Cup, travels to the lawn of FC Basel, this Thursday evening (21:00), in the quarter-final first leg of the Europa League Conference.
  • Owned by the British group Ineos since 2019, the Gym has entered a new phase this season with the arrival of Florent Ghisolfi as sports director and Jean-Claude Blanc as head of the petrochemical giant's sports division.
  • While the boss of the group Jim Ratcliffe is a candidate for the purchase of Manchester Unied, the place of the Nice club in the overall project of Ineos still seems to be defined.

Phase 1 of the project did not work, will the second one live up to the ambitions? At the time of its acquisition of OGC Nice at the end of the summer of 2019, the company Ineos said it wanted to make it a stronghold of French football, able to compete with PSG or at least to play the European Cup each year. When he said that, Jim Ratcliffe, big boss of the British petrochemical giant and third fortune of the Kingdom, did not really mean the Europa League Conference. But while waiting, perhaps, to achieve his goals, the billionaire sports fan is apparently not unhappy to see his baby, opposed to Basel this Thursday night in the quarter-finals, be the last French club present in Europe.

A "real turning point" in the project

If this beautiful course turns into a real epic, which seems in the ropes of Nice in view of the opponents remaining in contention and their performances since the induction of Didier Digard, it can be a pivotal moment in Ineos' project for the Gym. Its founding act. Because three and a half years later, it is still awaited. We thought we detected the beginning of something at the end of last season, but the defeat in the final of the Coupe de France and the explosion in flight of the duo formed by coach Christophe Galtier and director of football Julien Fournier, who both ended up going elsewhere, have endorsed the end of an era – sadly resurfaced in the news this Wednesday.

After the catastrophic interim of Iain Moody, a British external consultant in charge of summer transfers, the club's leaders have put things in order from the autumn. Jim Ratcliffe and Dave Brailsford, the man who allowed the Sky team to reign over the peloton in the 2010s and who today takes care of the performance for all the branches of the sports branch of the parent company (which includes football, Formula 1, cycling, sailing, athletics) convinced Florent Ghisolfi, Chief architect of the Lensois Renewal, to take the position of sports director. Before the masterstroke, the appointment of Jean-Claude Blanc, the man with the XXL CV passed by ASO, FFT, Juventus and PSG, as chief executive of Ineos Sport.


These two arrivals mark "a real turning point" in the project, says a good connoisseur of the club. First on the transfer side. "The Fournier project was a precise methodology to try to make gains on young players. There with Ghisolfi it is no longer the same, he continues. 30 million for a striker who comes from Lorient [Moffi], it's colossal on the scale of Nice. You feel that there are fewer reserves to spend money, even if it's not without counting either. »

Then, the experience of Blanc, QSI's confidant for everything that did not concern the field for 12 years in Paris, should allow the club to really find its place in the Ineos galaxy. Because Brailsford, sent to Nice to extinguish the fire last summer, had made the observation that the Gym evolved a little alone in its corner and that it was necessary to "bring it back to the other components of the group", as he had explained to L'Equipe in July. Virgile Caillet, specialist in the economics of sport and president of the Union sport et cycle, enlightens:

They will give Jean-Claude Blanc time to do a kind of audit, to analyze all the group's assets in the sports sector and see where the OGCN will be in this portfolio of assets. Ineos is investors. We can question the long-term profitability of a club like Nice, unless it is part of a global logic, and it is this work that they are carrying out with Blanc. »

In place officially since February, the heavyweight of sports management also has the task of dealing with the purchase of Manchester United, for which his boss has applied. Ratcliffe dreams of getting his hands on the club he has supported since childhood, and would have made according to the British press an offer of 5 billion pounds (5.7 billion euros) to acquire his new toy. Roughly the same as Sheikh Jassim Bin Hamad al-Thani, chairman of Qatar Islamic Bank and main competitor.

The outcome of this case will obviously influence the future of the Nice club. "It will not be neglected, but it will change things depending on whether the OGCN is the figurehead of the project or not, observes Virgile Caillet. Nice could find itself to be the tool to revive big players down at MU, or bring up young players. »

The Digard surprise

Nice branch of MU or parallel project, that we grow to the height it deserves regardless of the English club? At this time, no statement of intent has been made in this regard. Knowing that it will be necessary if necessary, it will be necessary to deal with the UEFA regulations, which prohibit - for the moment - two clubs belonging to the same owner to compete in the same competition.

Considerations that Didier Digard does not want to pay too much attention to. The 36-year-old former midfielder doesn't quite fit the image of the coach in charge of the Ineos project. But Lucien Favre's successor, whose revival has been cut short, has the results for him (eight wins, six draws and only one defeat in 15 games since his induction), as well as the support of his sporting director. "For Ghisolfi, it's comfortable to have Digard," explains our regular at the Gym. There are many leaders in this club, if the coach does not ride for you can quickly find yourself isolated. Strategically he has every interest in continuing with him, because he gets along well with him and knows the environment perfectly. »

The person concerned had been surveyed in early March by L'Equipe on his feelings. "Do I feel able to embody the Ineos project in the long term? I don't control it, it's tricky to position yourself. But yes, necessarily, otherwise I would have refused to take the team, "he replied. If he takes the club to the semi-finals of the European Cup and finishes at the gates of the top 5 in Ligue 1 (for example), it will be difficult not to reinforce him next summer.

Curiosity

In any case, he sees himself as part of the long term. And support the club's development plan. This includes the expansion of the training and training center through the purchase of new fields, and the installation next to a large performance center that will also host the cycling team as well as part of the F1 and sailing branches. For a better sharing of competences, a concept dear to Ratcliffe and Brailsford.

No reason while the rest does not follow. The ultimate goal, according to the former boss of Team Sky? "To be respected for our results and to be loved. Being more Ayrton Senna than Michael Schumacher. To be more Brazil than the German team, he illustrated in his interview with L'Equipe. In Nice, we want a team with a smile. To listen to what is said, the next summer transfer window could send heavy. We may not be further along on the precise purpose of this Ineos project, but we cannot take away from it that it still arouses curiosity.

  • Football
  • OGC Nice
  • Conference Europa League
  • Ineos
  • Sport