By Samindra Kunti
May 15 – The president of RC Lens Gervais Martel has insisted a new investor will inject €15 million in the much troubled club to keep Lens afloat in France’s second division Ligue 2 after majority shareholder Hafiz Mammadov defaulted.
Last May RC Lens sealed promotion back to the French top-flight 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 Azeri shareholder 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. This season the club from the Nord-Pas-de-Calais was relegated again, but to sustain itself in Ligue 2 Lens will need €15 million. Martel’s club doesn’t have the money at the moment and has a hearing at the DNCG on May 26.
“It’s €15 million,” said Martel in a rare interview with France Football. “That’s what I am going to show to the DNCG. I am going to channel the money through my holding, GIM2. That’s the world turned upside down, but I am substituting Mammadov, who can’t deal with his responsibilities. He has to accept to be of lesser importance in relation to a new investor in the club’s capital or he has to agree to cede his shares because he can’t meet his commitments.”
“I can’t say more about this European investor,” said the 60-year-old. “I will announce his name when the time comes.”
If Martel and RC Lens fail to satisfy the DNCG about the club’s financial health and long term sustainability, the punishment might be as severe as immediate relegation from Ligue 2.
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