Liquidation looms, Girondins de Bordeaux pin all hopes on FFF executive committee

Girondins de Bordeaux are fighting for their survival on Thursday during a videoconference of the French Football Federation’s executive committee (Comex), the last possible lifeline before judicial liquidation that now seriously threatens the historic club.

Last Friday, the Paris administrative court rejected the emergency suspension request filed by FCGB against their exclusion from national championships, a sanction confirmed on appeal on July 15. This verdict forces the club to compete this season in Régional 1, the sixth tier of French football. A prospect deemed incompatible with the economic viability of the project backed by new investors Sparta Capital and Park Bench, who had hoped for promotion to National 1 (fourth division) to avert the threat of liquidation.

One final door remains slightly ajar. Article 199 of the federation’s rules stipulates that a decision validated on appeal can be resubmitted for review if at least 12 of the 27 Comex members support it. That is precisely the objective of Thursday’s meeting, which will be attended by Alexandre Gougnard, president of the Gironde District and member of the executive committee. “It is a checkpoint on the situation of Girondins de Bordeaux so that everyone is at the same level of information on the case,” he told L’Équipe.

To succeed, Bordeaux’s executives will need to convince the FFF to invoke the higher interest of French football and pronounce an exceptional conservation measure. An uncertain scenario, but one that now represents the only alternative to the disappearance of one of the most decorated clubs in French championship history.