Two days before the clasico against PSG, the timing seems ideal for talking on the Canebière… This Friday, rumors of an upcoming sale of OM came back to the table.
Since the attempt this summer, with great blows of surrealist statements, of the Tunisian businessman Mohamed Ayachi Ajroudi associated with Mourad Boudjellal, finally aborted, this soap opera in the shape of a sea serpent, had been put on pause.
But so he resumed.
Two sources including Canal + have indeed announced that the Marseille club would be in the process of being bought out by a Saudi fund, for an amount close to 480 million euros.
At the time when the mayor Benoit Payan announced his desire to sell the Vélodrome stadium, his purchase - an essential asset for a future investor -, would also be in the project of the Kingdom Holding Company, whose president is the prince and man of Saudi business Al-Walid Ben Talal.
"I wonder who benefits from these manipulations"
His name had already appeared around OM last spring.
Luis Campos, who has just left Lille, would also be announced in the project.
Owner Frank McCourt was quick to deny it, as he has done regularly for months as soon as a rumor like this emerges.
“My commitment to OM, its employees, the city and all Marseillais is total.
I will remain, with all of OM's management and its president, Jacques-Henri Eyraud, invested in carrying this project to the end.
We owe it to OM and its history, past, present and future.
I also wonder about the origin of these repeated disinformation campaigns and wonder who benefits from these manipulations, ”wrote the American from Boston in a press release.
Frank McCourt categorically denies the false and deleterious rumors about the sale of OM.
- Olympique de Marseille (@OM_Officiel) February 5, 2021
In such a deal, discretion and confidentiality being the rules, you should always take this kind of denial with some caution.
According to our information, this crazy rumor and the figures announced would, however, for the moment, be quite fanciful.
There would be no discussions with this Saudi fund.
Same thing concerning a future role of Luis Campos.
If the latter has often confided in private that after Monaco and Lille, the only French club that could interest him would be OM, his relatives specify that sending him to Marseille is "very premature".
The interest of other investors
But all this does not mean that OM does not continue to arouse the interest of certain investors.
According to some sources, they also come from the Middle East, especially Dubai.
Many regret to see OM, ridiculed in the Champions League, so far from PSG and unable to compete with him in L1.
It is obvious that McCourt's strategy, even though he has invested 200 million euros and paid off debts, has found its limits in sport.
But the context between the health crisis, the absence of the public in the stadiums and the deleterious atmosphere that currently reigns within the club between disappointing sporting results and an attack on the Commandery by supporters last Saturday, does not seem ideal to a sale.
McCourt, who has not set foot in Marseille since October 2019, is certainly aware of this and does not want to sell off the club.