Strasbourg’s four ultra fan groups have united to demand the departure of sporting director Marc Keller.
The Ligue 1 side smashed their record summer spend by forking out €118million thanks to their Chelsea-backed BlueCo ownership.
Yet questionable deals between the two clubs have been highlighted for fans, with the latest for Emanuel Emegha called the ‘ultimate indignity’.
In a lengthy statement from the club’s four ultra groups, they wrote: “The transfer window ended with a record investment for our club. But let’s not be fooled: this smokescreen of figures actually confirms all the fears we’ve expressed since the takeover of RCS by BlueCo, on June 22, 2023.
“It is now clear that Racing is being used as a speculative reserve, meant to accumulate overpriced players in order to generate capital gains or feed Chelsea, the real first team in this multi-club system.
“The club’s communications department dared to conclude this grim transfer window with the slogan: ‘This squad is built around our values.’ Yes, around the values of football-business, dependence, and unbridled speculation.
“No, not around those of Racing Club de Strasbourg: independence, identity, pride, popular football, and difference — values that have been cherished for many years, against winds and tides, and which have earned Strasbourg its noble reputation.
“The examples are many – How can we accept that Mamadou Sarr was transferred to Chelsea with a view to the Club World Cup, as if he was on a trial period before possibly returning here? Where is sporting fairness? How can one club benefit from a reserve team in another championship?
“How can we understand the sale of Samuels-Smith, a player who had not played a single minute here, for an amount six times higher than his value, before returning to Chelsea thirty-four days after his arrival and without playing a single match? Is the mission of a historic Ligue 1 club to serve such schemes?
“Where is the sporting logic in selling, on the very last day of the transfer window, the most in-form player since the start of the season, only to see him shine for Monaco a few days later? We were promised that RCS would now be able to keep its best players. Yet another lie that does nothing but add another note to the repeated tune played by Marc Keller since negotiations with BlueCo began.
“The ultimate indignity was reached on September 12, when Chelsea, Racing and Emegha jointly announced his transfer for 2026. How can we accept that a captain of RCS poses in a Chelsea shirt, smiling, while still under contract and supposedly defending our colors all season long?
“We cannot support what this club is becoming. The institution is being trampled by an investment fund that threatens the very integrity of Racing. Good sporting results or a European qualification will never make up for it: the identity and independence of RCS are being sacrificed. A nauseatingly coordinated communication operation showing the supposed club president with a slice of flammekueche will not fool the true Racing supporters.
“Marc Keller is no longer the decision-maker of this club that he had rebuilt on solid foundations ten years ago. Today, he is nothing more than a spokesperson aligned with BlueCo’s policy. He must now take responsibility: leave and let real leaders emerge, capable of defending the club with which he once shared so much, but which he no longer represents.”
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