I live in a small French village which lies about a 75 minute drive inland from the city of Bordeaux.
Most of my neighbours couldn’t care less about football, being firmly entrenched in the oval ball tradition. Benji is the exception but he is far from happy these days.
Benji is a Bordeaux supporter.
If you think we had it rough under the 15 years of carnage known as the Ashley years, spare a thought for Benji.
FC Girondins de Bordeaux have been described as one of the “most storied” of French clubs, having won Ligue Un 6 times (the last time in 2008/9), the Coupe de France 4 times (2012/13 being their most recent triumph) and the Coupe de la League 3 times (culminating in a league and cup double in 2008/9). The club has helped develop the careers of some of the absolute greats of the French game, such as Zinedine Zidane, Alain Giresse, Jean Tigana, Christophe Dugarry and, more recently, Aurélien Tchouaméni.
Not quite in the same bracket but for most Newcastle United fans, the main connection to Bordeaux that they would make is probably the much maligned Yoan Gouffran – the first of three connections or parallels I would draw with Bordeaux and NUFC. Playing as a striker or winger, he scored the winning goal that sealed the league title for Bordeaux in the 2008/9 season and also scored one of the Bordeaux goals to help win the League Cup final that same season.
The Mag Issue 276 9 February 2013
Issue 276 – 9 February 2013
With such a record of scoring crucial goals, it was sadly inevitable that the Silver Snide, aka Alan Pardew, converted him into a supplementary left back. I liked Gouff because of his attitude and work rate but he became a bit of a whipping boy, unjustly so in my opinion. I wonder how things might have gone for him if he’d had Eddie as a manager?
Anyway, back to my mate Benji.
Despite his team’s undoubted pedigree, Benji has had to watch helplessly as they have tumbled down the leagues rather spectacularly over the past four years. Their disastrous decline is, inevitably, rooted in a complex tale of speculative owners coming, going or (unfortunately) not going along with the associated financial irregularities – exacerbated by an incident of moronic fan misbehaviour.
The dramatic fall from grace began in the 2021/22 season. From April 2021 they had admitted that they were struggling financially due partly to the effects of Covid restrictions but also loss of sponsorship when Mediatron, the TV rights holder, went bankrupt and missed payments. The club was then placed in administration when King Street (their American owners) stated they would no longer support the club financially.
Despite acquiring a new owner – Gerard Lopez, who also owns Portuguese club Boavista – they finished bottom of the league and were relegated. But worse was to come as, due to the financial irregularities around the club’s activities, they were actually relegated further by the Direction Nationale du Contrôle de Gestion (the French body which oversees all matters relating to association football clubs) to the Championnat National – the third tier of French football.
A reprieve was secured on appeal, however, so they were reinstated to Ligue 2 on July 27 2022. The aim was obviously to regain top level status at the first attempt – something they were potentially on track to achieve when they came to the last game of the season.
I wrote an article for The Mag entitled “Pitch Invaders” which detailed what happened in the last game of the season. Bordeaux’s game against Rodez was abandoned. Rodez scored on 22 minutes. As their players celebrated next to the goal, a disgruntled Bordeaux fan ran on to the pitch and pushed two Rodez players in the back. They fell to the ground and one, Lucas Buadés, immediately clutched his head and proceeded to writhe about in apparent agony.
He was stretchered off with, allegedly, concussion and the ref abandoned the game. The league’s disciplinary committee then ruled that the game, which Bordeaux had to win to keep their promotion hopes alive, would not be replayed and awarded the three points to Rodez. It also deducted a point from Bordeaux for the next season? But worse was to come……
Following the desertion of the American owners, the club was purchased by Gerard Lopez – Spanish/Luxembourgish entrepreneur with an interest in sport. But his reputation was tarnished. Previously the proprietor of Lille, a successful club on the pitch, Lopez was forced to sell as the club racked up heavy losses in 2020. The main creditors Elliot Management Corporation and JP Morgan Chase, forcing the sale through.
A recurring theme runs through Mr Lopez’ sporting ventures. He bought Belgian top-flight club Royal Excel Mouscron in 2020, only for it to file for bankruptcy two years later.
It wasn’t just football. Lopez was president of the Lotus Formula 1 team when they accumulated significant debts amounting to £114 million back in 2014. Something blamed by him on the cost of introducing hybrid engines. Renault completed a buy-out in the following year.
The Mag Issue 250 11 September 2010
Issue 250 – 11 September 2010
It seemed to fans that Bordeaux was following the Lopez blueprint when, in the summer of 2024, after several appeals, the club finally filed for administration. As reported by Swiss Ramble in Substack Aug 12 2024, Bordeaux had to file for bankruptcy in order to avoid “heavy additional sanctions” over the club’s ongoing financial difficulties. As a result, the club had to give up it’s professional status, “terminating the contracts of all its players and closing one of France’s leading youth academies, which highlighted the colossal mismanagement over the last few years.”
Consequently, the club was further relegated to National 2 – the fourth tier of French football. Since then they have been plagued by fan protests and suffered a temporary withdrawal of council support for the use of the home stadium.
The fans were very pessimistic. As reported by NBC News (15 Oct 2024), David Gluzman, a Bordeaux fan and director at Deutsche Pfandbriefbank stated,
“In the fourth tier, your sources of income are gate receipts and sponsorships – I would be surprised if the club got even 2m euros (£1.67m) from that,” he said.
“The money coming in from sell-on fees will be used to pay off creditors. The club will only be viable if Lopez puts in the difference between that and the 8m euros budget.”
In an interview with The Athletic, Lopez stated that while he “understood” the fans’ anger, “they should blame those who sank the club” before he arrived. “I tried to turn things around and paid with my own money in doing so, and I’m still here saving the club,” he added. “Today, if I withdrew from the club, it would simply disappear.
“We’ve made a phenomenal effort to reduce the debt inherited from previous shareholders. When I took over the club, the financial debt was around €100m, and today it’s just €11m.”
This is the second connection I see with our club. Fabulously rich new owner comes in, “suddenly discovers” that the club is massively in debt, claims to have put his own money in out of the goodness of his heart and blames everyone else for the situation. Kind Gerard, anyone? Sound familiar?
This most dispiriting of setbacks for “Les Girondins”, though, leads us to the third and most interesting of our connections with the club.
With the new manager, Bruno Irles, financially hamstrung, he had to be creative in order to be able to field a team for their first game against Poitiers. As well as calling ex players out of retirement, he was able to recruit an aging but inspirational Geordie by the name of Andy Carroll!
Andy Carroll Newcastle United
Big Andy hit the ground running. His debut was in a home game and happened to also be the first one back in the club’s stadium, the Matmut Atlantique. The first match, against Voltigeurs de Chateaubriant, brought a turnout of more than 10,000 fans.
By November, Andy had scored 7 of the club’s 11 goals and had made himself a very popular player. He was loving it in the area, as he found himself largely anonymous outside of the playing side of life., saying in an interview,
“I can go into a bakery and buy a pain au chocolat without anyone saying to me, ‘How was the match? Can I have a photo’?”
“I feel like I’m normal. I just wanted to go out and be free, be me.”
“Here, I can take my children to the zoo and they don’t say ‘come dad’ while people ask for photos or autographs.”
“There’s a little pub around the corner where I went with other boys to watch a PSG match! What a game! Nobody said anything to me.”
Sadly, though, you’ve probably guessed what comes next. Unfortunately, Andy’s soft tissues refused to play along and he found himself, frustratingly, sidelined for much of the winter months with, I believe, an achilles injury. He finished the season having scored 11 goals in 21 appearances. At the end of the season he left the club “to be closer to his children”. I think he can be proud of the contribution he made and feel satisfied with the appreciation of his efforts by fans like my pal, Benji. What a shame that his body couldn’t match his spirit!
Despite Andy’s best efforts, Bordeaux weren’t able to threaten the promotion spots that season and now face their second campaign in the lower reaches of French football.
Anfield Stadium Liverpool
Their problems, sadly, continue. Some hope had arisen briefly in August 2024 with a potential takeover by Liverpool owners Fenway Sports Group. Talks collapsed, however, over the costs associated with the use of the Matmut Atlantique stadium and the general financial struggles of French football.
Problems continue with disputes between fan groups. A conflict between the two main groups of fans has meant many of the matches at lower-league grounds are played behind closed doors for security reasons. The North Gate fans notably accuse the Ultramarines of being too close to, and soft with, the owner. I wonder if they’re calling them sheep and happy clappers?
Poor old Benji is still waiting for the good times to roll again. As of 31 Oct 2025, their record is played 8, won 4 Drawn 2, Lost 2. They sit 5th in table 2 points behind leaders La Roche Vendée – a commune of 54,000 people as compared to Bordeaux’s 1,018,070 in 2025 (according to the World Population Review).
Still. He can comfort himself with the exploits of his new second team up in the NE corner of Angleterre – as long as he only watches the home games!