The president of France’s DNCG, Jean-Marc Mickeler, has responded to criticism from Crystal Palace shareholder John Textor as he looks to rectify the situation at Lyon.
Ouest France cover comments from Mickeler after Textor claimed that the DNCG, France’s football finance regulator, had made an exceptional decision in regard to Lyon.
Lyon were hit with precautionary measures last week due to the state of their finances, placing a ban on recruitment, regulating their payroll during the next transfer window and putting a provisional demotion to Ligue 2 on them if the financial situation does not improve.
Textor has since made it clear they won’t be relegated, claiming the DNCG had ignored various things he had told them in a previous meeting.
One of these was his intention to sell his shares in Crystal Palace, with the funds from that set to be distributed across the Eagle Football Group and thus help Lyon.
Textor believes he and his side have been disproportionately treated but Mickeler is having none of that, insisting he and his group are simply working on reality and not hypotheticals.
“The DNCG listened perfectly, heard and understood what Textor explained to it,” he said.
“He is convinced that once he has listed Eagle Group in the United States and sold Crystal Palace and a certain number of players, the combination of one or more of these elements will enable him to substantially improve the OL situation.
“But the role of the DNCG is to be sceptical of any operation that has not yet been carried out. The DNCG only wants one thing, and that is for John Textor to carry out these important operations and for us to be able to not confirm this demotion at the next hearing.
“The DNCG requires bank guarantees or cash to cover part of these risks. We asked him, like others, to pre-finance what we consider to be risks of budgetary non-execution. We presented to him the functioning of the DNCG and his requests when he bought the club.”
The question, then, is whether Textor can complete the sale of his shares in Crystal Palace before the end of the season.
Textor is seemingly confident of that happening and a report earlier this month quoted him as claiming there were multiple billionaires looking to take them up.
The DNCG are not convinced for now, at least is Mickeler’s comments are anything to go by, and they’re waiting for something more concrete before taking their punishment off of Lyon.
