Historic French football club sold
Print Edition
THE sale of historic French football club FC Sochaux by carmaker Peugeot to a Chinese high-tech company has sparked a cultural revolution in the gray industrial bastion.
Tradition means a lot in Sochaux. Peugeot created the football club in 1928 for its workers. The team has spent a record 66 seasons in the French top league until they were relegated last year. Olympique Marseille and Paris Saint-Germain cannot match that.
The Auguste-Bonal stadium is in the shadow of the Peugeot factory that still employs 10,000 workers.
But that heritage is about to go out the window with the arrival of Tech Pro, a Hong Kong-listed electrical components maker, who have said they will pay 7 million euros (US$7.9 million) for Sochaux in a deal which could be completed in May.
Tech Pro chairman Li Wing-sang has paid tribute to the “fabulous brand” which he said Sochaux represents.
“We don’t want big changes. We want to support what works well, to conserve Sochaux’s culture intact, at 100 percent,” he told the regional L’Est Republicain newspaper recently.
“The creation of the football club by the Peugeot family created an extraordinary social network for this region and gave it an identity card,” said Marcel Bonnot, president of the Pays de Montbeliard regional council which includes Sochaux.
“This is a real cultural and sporting shock,” he added.
Sochaux President Laurent Pernet said selling a club with such a stable ownership was a “first in Europe.”
“The object of the management team now is to get through this transition so that the spirit and soul of the club change as little as possible and remains with its historic values.”
Pernet stressed, however, that the new owners have a “serious and long-term” economic plan.
Sochaux’s players have sought to stay out of the takeover spotlight. But coach Olivier Echouafni saw the “little revolution” happening around the stadium.
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