Another Gerard Lopez club is in its final days in the shape of Bordeaux.
The French giants had already been taken to the fourth tier by the Luxembourg ‘businessman’ but they now look set to follow Boavista out of existence.
Bordeaux were administratively relegated to the sixth tier regional leagues by French football’s financial watchdog, the DNCG.
Lopez found an English firm called Sparta Capital to promise to pay the €10.6million debt that he’d accrued at the club which enabled appeal to the National Olympic and Sports Committee (CNOSF).
The prospective owners came up with the cash, but on a retainer under the prevision that they would be kept in the fourth tier.
French football uphold Bordeaux’s sixth tier relegation
That hasn’t happened with the CNOSF upholding the DNCG’s decision, sending another Lopez club tumbling down without owners.
Bordeaux are now in end times heading for liquidation even in spite of a new potential owner appearing following Sparta Capital’s dissapearance.
The Park Bench investment group, headed by businessman James Bord, has promised to cover the costs to avoid liquidation and the club has filed various appeals.
Should the sale go through, Dominique Delport would become the club’s president.
Prospective owners try to offer glimmer of light
Speaking to L’Equipe, he said: “We will file an emergency appeal with the administrative court this Monday and use all available legal avenues.
“It’s not in the Gironde region that people forget The Spirit of the Laws and Montesquieu. There’s the letter and the spirit.
“It (the CNOSF) did its job, it looked at the regularity of the judgment at the time it was made.
“Until the very last moment, we believe that with a credible project, with the financing secured, we can allow the Girondins and their supporters, the players, the employees, to have another hope than judicial liquidation, for the creditors to be paid, for this new dynamic to get going.”
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