By Samindra Kunti
December 22 – The president of RC Lens, Gervais Martel, has said that majority shareholder Hafiz Mammadov (pictured) from Azerbaijan may be replaced by another Azeri investor if Mammadov doesn’t meet his obligations before December 31.
In May RC Lens sealed promotion back to Ligue 1 by defeating CA Bastia 2-0 on the final day of the season, but in June the league’s National Directorate of Management Control (DNCG), a body that oversees the finances of French football clubs, blocked Lens’s promotion due to an irregularity in the club’s proposed budget for the 2014/15 season: a €10 million payment from Mammadov was missing.
RC Lens appealed the decision with the French Olympic Committee (CNOSF), who overruled the DNCG by recommending that the club should be allowed to compete in Ligue 1.
Last week Martel disclosed more information about RC Lens’s precarious financial situation at a press conference after a meeting with the DNCG.
“The meeting went well,” said Lens’s president. “We were able to approve the contracts of Samuel Atrous and Benjamin Boulenger. We found no wage agreement with Landry Nguemo, who will look for a bigger club.”
“We will see the DNCG again in the first week of January to discuss the club’s possibilities during the transfer window in the winter,” said Martel, a French businessman, who has been the president of RC Lens since 1988.
“A change of ownership is possible up to December 31,” continued Martel. “If it isn’t Hafiz Mammadov, it will be another group with whom I already have an agreement. I want to salute Hafiz who paid €24 million in a year and a half. The last €2.5 million arrived at the end of last week. The DNCG took note of these encouraging signs.”
There may, however, be a problem with the last sum of €2.5 million, according to local media La Voix du Nord. The newspaper claims that the money was channeled to RC Lens via an offshore company Point to Point, which is owned by Anar Mammadov, the son of Azerbaijan’s minister of transport. Anar Mammadov is not related to Hafiz Mammadov. Furthermore the signature of Hafiz Mammadov on a document presented to the DCNG would be false.
The source of RC Lens’s necessary funding remains unclear, but Martel emphasized that RC Lens is financially healthy, claiming that the club has €5 million in its accounts. He indicated that RC Lens won’t be spending heavily during the January transfer window. The club is set for a difficult second part of the season. Friday night RC Lens defeated Nice 2-0 to climb out of the relegation zone in Ligue 1.
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