In search of a buyer for several months, the co-presidents of AS Saint-Etienne Bernard Caïazzo and Roland Romeyer may have finally found the rare pearl, after the failure of the Cambodian prince, Norodom Ravichak.
While the Greens bowed to Paris Saint-Germain (3-1) on Sunday during the 15th day of Ligue 1, a candidate for the club's redemption was present in the stands of Geoffroy-Guichard.
His name: Roman Dubrovnik, President of Total Sports Investments (TSI).
The Russian defines himself as "
a leader in the development of sports teams and sports-related businesses
".
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According to information from the newspaper
L'Equipe on
Monday, Dubrovnik is actually the representative of billionaire Sergey Lomakin who would have sent a letter to the management of Saint-Etienne to express his desire to recover the club.
He would even be ready to put the modest sum of 100 million euros to achieve his ends.
He would not arrive alone since the Spanish legend Michel Salgado would accompany him.
The former Real Madrid defender, also present at the Cauldron on Sunday, did not only come to admire the first steps of his ex-teammate Sergio Ramos.
A member of the TSI delegation, he mainly came to take the temperature with the presidency.
A previous fiasco in Portsmouth
This is not the first time that the name of the oligarch has returned to the world of football. The businessman had bought the Championship club (2nd English division) Portsmouth in 2011. And the least we can say is that the failure was total. Dubrovnik left the “
Pompeys
” only eight months after taking office, leaving behind a veritable field of ruins. And for good reason, the club was then placed in receivership and relegated to League Two (4th English division), before being saved from bankruptcy by its own supporters in 2013.
A huge fiasco which does not seem to dampen the ardor of the KPMG (audit and management firm responsible for examining the applications for the takeover of ASSE) which has already given its approval to open negotiations with Roman Dubrovnik. AS Saint-Etienne may therefore have its long-awaited buyer: “
I would like to find a billionaire who can put the same money as
(Dmitry)
Rybolovlev in Monaco, or
(Frank)
McCourt in Marseille
.
We are forced to go through an inheritance process, one in which you have to be sure that the people who come after are not sweet dreamers. That these are people who have the means,
”said Bernard Caïazzo last June.
If nothing has yet been finalized, discussions seem to be well under way.
The big smile that Roland Romeyer wore at the final whistle on Sunday, when his team, still the championship red lantern, had just suffered a major defeat, says a lot about the progress of the project.
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