How one of France’s top soccer clubs ended up fighting for its very survival in the lower leagues

BORDEAUX, France (AP) — Inside Bordeaux’s training complex a giant map shows every soccer club it has ever faced in European competition, including giants such as AC Milan, Bayern Munich and Juventus.

These days few fans have even heard of Bordeaux’s opponents, and high-profile away games have been replaced by arduous six-hour bus journeys to little-known stadiums in small-town France.

The club — a six-time national champion that was once home to France great Zinedine Zidane — is languishing in the amateur-level fourth division after one of European soccer’s most staggering declines.

Swamped by 118 million euros ($128 million) of debt, Bordeaux has closed its youth academy, women’s division and most administrative offices. It has filed for bankruptcy and renounced its status as a professional sports club. On Nov. 5, more than 80 people will lose their jobs in a 6 million euros ($6.5 million) redundancy plan. Without a new investor in sight one of France’s proudest clubs faces a race against time to avoid liquidation.

“You feel so sad, disillusioned,” said Alain Giresse, a club legend who scored 182 goals in 592 appearances in the 1970’s and ’80s. “It’s not a club that destroyed itself, it’s a club that has been destroyed (by) the people in charge.”

The team now plays in the National 2 league — three rungs below France’s top tier — against opponents from towns with as few as 10,000 residents. By contrast, Bordeaux, a tourist destination world-renowned for its prestigious wines, counts about 1 million people in its metropolitan area.

If that’s an unfamiliar situation for the club, the same can be said for its top player, former England and Liverpool striker Andy Carroll, who joined Bordeaux this summer.

“I knew the situation they were in and when I spoke to them, I knew there was a project there,” Carroll, 35, told The Associated Press in a recent interview. “It’s a club that deserves to be at the top with the stadium, the training ground, the fans, everything that the club has to give.”

The fans are hurting

Bordeaux’s misfortune shows how a longtime top-level club can plummet through the league system of European soccer, which unlike U.S. professional sports operates on a system of promotion and relegation whereby teams at the bottom of a league drop down a level the following season.

Founded in 1936, FC Girondins de Bordeaux has played a total of 75 seasons in France’s top division and won its latest league title in 2009. It has also won four French cups, three League Cups and reached the 1996 UEFA Cup final.

The club’s training ground is named after the 19th century Château du Haillan, which sits at the heart of its sweeping meadows, befitting the aesthetic aura of a club graced by elegant playmakers like Giresse, Zidane and Yoann Gourcuff. In 2010, Haillan buzzed with anticipation when a Gourcuff-inspired Bordeaux reached the Champions League quarterfinals.

Now almost every training pitch is empty.

“It’s like a place that no is longer alive, there’s nothing there,” Giresse told AP by telephone.

After the resolution of a dispute over matchday costs with the owners, Bordeaux has returned to the 42,000-capacity Matmut Atlantique stadium, which hosted soccer matches during the Paris Olympics. But the remote location, 40 minutes from the center by tram, adds to the impression of an isolated white elephant. During a league game on Oct. 19 against Avranches, a Normandy team, the food stalls were shut and fans sat on benches eating their own provisions like a surreal picnic.

Denis Barbet, who has followed Bordeaux since the ’80s, was deeply upset by the youth academy’s closure.

“It’s a catastrophe with all the people who lost their jobs,” Barbet, 57, said. “The training center is emblematic of the club, the Château du Haillan is exceptional. When you’ve known that and the glory days, and now there’s nothing left and everything’s been abandoned, it’s heart-breaking.”

His son, Yoann Barbet, came through the academy and captained Bordeaux last season when it finished 12th in division two.

As another lifelong fan, Regis Marty used to watch Giresse and Zidane in the glory days and fears a bleak future.

“There are not many solutions other than a good buyer,” Marty, 61, said. “I don’t believe it will happen. I want it with all my heart, but it will be difficult.”

During the game, the club’s main supporter groups, Ultramarines and North Gate, expressed differing views about the club’s leadership.

While the Ultramarines unfurled a giant banner talking about “renewed hope” the North Gate urged club president Gérard Lopez to “get lost” and let off flares with black smoke in protest.

Bordeaux won 1-0 with Carroll’s fifth goal in three matches.

“Right now I’m running around out there every day feeling like I’m still 17,” Carroll said. “I feel really good in myself and in my life, in football and outside the club.”

From the Premier League to amateur soccer

Carroll’s heading ability and remarkable chest-trapping of the ball set him apart in amateur soccer. Hardly surprising, considering he played 16 seasons in the Premier League and scored twice for England.

Carroll cost Liverpool 35 million pounds ($46 million) when he joined from Newcastle in January 2011. Back then, he was the Premier League’s most expensive British transfer signing.

After years with injury problems, he joined French second-division team Amiens last season and moved to Bordeaux this year. His salary is undisclosed, but the maximum monthly wage in the amateur league is 3,500 euros ($3,800).

“When I first came here, I wanted to challenge myself, something different,” Carroll said. “I didn’t know how it was going to be.”

He has experienced deafening atmospheres at St. James’ Park in Newcastle and Anfield in Liverpool. So what does he think about playing away against Saumur in a 2,500-capacity stadium?

“I love it, think it’s brilliant. That’s what grassroots football is about, that’s where I started and it just brings back a lot of memories,” Carroll said. “It’s just a great feeling just to play football and still have the fans there at my age. It doesn’t matter if there’s just a rope around the pitch or a big stadium.”

Where did things go wrong?

General American Capital Partners bought Bordeaux from long-term owner M6 television channel in 2018, then sold it to backer King Street.

The pandemic and a collapsed television deal caused French soccer huge losses. When King Street pulled out, Lopez acquired Bordeaux in June 2021. The following season it finished last in Ligue 1 and was relegated.

As Bordeaux narrowly missed out on moving back up the next year, Lopez offset huge financial losses by writing a shareholder’s loan to Bordeaux for 38 million euros.

Ahead of this season, the club failed to provide financial guarantees to French soccer’s financial watchdog, the DNCG. After a deal with potential backers The Fenway Sports Group — which owns Liverpool and the Boston Red Sox — fell through, the DNCG demoted Bordeaux to the third tier in July. Bordeaux was placed into receivership by the city’s commercial court, which triggered another relegation but at least meant a debt freeze.

Fifty academy players were released, generating short-term savings but depriving the club of future revenue from selling homegrown talent.

Former players like Giresse, Bixente Lizarazu and Christophe Dugarry, want Lopez out. So does city mayor Pierre Hurmic. Going into liquidation could enforce that, but Bordeaux would drop into the abyss of regional leagues.

Lopez didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Bordeaux, at mid-table early in the season, needs two promotions to return to professional soccer so therefore plenty of goals from Carroll, who is optimistic despite the scale of the challenge.

“There’s a massive pressure on us anyway, being who we are, to get promoted,” Carroll said. “If we can carry on winning games I think the pressure’s going to be on the other teams to stop us.”

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