Over the past week or so, there have been a couple of articles claiming that the City Football Group, who own Manchester City and numerous other clubs around the world, were close to buying AS Nancy-Lorraine in Ligue 2 in France.
The club’s president confirmed as much, explaining talks were well underway and there was hope a deal could get over the line.
Fast forward to Thursday, and L’Equipe have an article on the matter, revealing the purchase by the Manchester City owners is ‘close to being finalised’, hopefully ‘before the start of April’, as well as looking at how it all unfolded in the space of five months.
It all started back in early November when the current president, Jacques Rousselot, was called by Simon Stainrod, an English intermediary who used to play with Brian Marwood, now the CEO of City Football Group.
The company had employed the agent a few months ago to find a project in France, having tried to do so over the past two years, and prospect a potential club purchase.
Stainrod met a number of clubs, such as Orléans, Le Mans and even Troyes, but it was Nancy that caught his eyes, because, as someone close to the group said, ‘in terms of structure, history and development possibilities, Nancy had all the criteria’.
Even the fact the stadium is owned by the Métropole du Grand Nancy, the city’s administrative entity, didn’t put them off.
After a number of early phone calls, visits were organised between November and early December to see the infrastructures, such as the training ground and development facilities, eventually judging it to be ‘athletic and compatible’.
While this was happening, financial discussions were taking place, which ended in early January, when it was agreed the final amount of the sale would be between €12m and €18m.
The aim from the City Football Group is to create a long-term project, like they have elsewhere, and they will keep the current president, Rousselot, in charge for the foreseeable future, although no defined period has been announced.
