Lizarazu, between sadness and anger, doubts Girondins' future in Regional 1

Bixente Lizarazu is not hiding his dismay at the fall of Girondins de Bordeaux, relegated to Régional 1 for the 2026-2027 season after their exclusion from all national competitions by the DNCG due to financial mismanagement. The 1998 World Cup winner, who came through the club’s academy, expressed his frustration on the Téléfoot l’After show.

The Bordeaux club’s descent accelerated this summer. Despite several legal appeals, the French Football Federation and the administrative court confirmed the sanction. To avoid judicial liquidation, owner Gérard Lopez sold the club for one symbolic euro to British investment fund Park Bench on 30 September 2026, with a debt repayment plan spread over twelve years and a 50% write-off of public claims by the State.

After being forced to postpone their first four matches, Bordeaux began their Régional 1 season with a 2-0 victory against Aviron Bayonnais’s reserve team. The new management is displaying ambitions to finish top of the group to immediately climb back to National 2. An objective that leaves Lizarazu sceptical.

“The gravedigger of Girondins de Bordeaux, Gérard Lopez, is no longer there. Yet in the meantime, the Girondins have dropped to the sixth division. I don’t really know what to think,” he declared. The former left-back questions the real capabilities of the new fund: “We don’t have visibility on its real means, on its ambition, on its capacity for the Girondins to become a very big club again and climb back to the top division. Everything remains to be rebuilt. First, trust.”

His exasperation is palpable: “Every time I look at Girondins news, it changes from one week to the next, and everything annoys me. Every time I look at Girondins news, I go cycling to calm down. Everything has been crazy for five years.” Lizarazu points to three priority areas: restoring trust, cleaning up finances — “we’ll have to repay part of the debt” — and rebuilding the sporting side, which he describes as a “disaster”.