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471359.GRP.qxp_Layout 1 15/01/2017 19:13 Page 28 FRANCE LILLE THE LOPEZ MYSTERY LOSC’s new owner, who likes to cultivate secrecy, is a shrewd businessman with many facets, some of which raise questions. TEXT: ÉRIC CHAMPEL Thirty-two. That is the number of text messages exchanged with Guillaume Durao, a former colleague of Gérard Lopez who remains very close to the Spanish-Luxembourgish businessman. Between missed appointments and overfull diaries, we were never able to follow up on a brief telephone conversation with this faithful France Football reader. A pity: this charming gentleman might have told us more about his former boss’s intentions and how he planned to “establish a new approach to the football economy”. Former Renault marketing director Stéphane De Miollis had, for his part, agreed to meet at the end of last month. He cancelled the day before. A pity. He could have provided details of Renault’s acquisition of the Lotus Formula 1 team for a symbolic one pound sterling at the end of 2015. A solution that had become necessary after several years of chaotic management. In 2009, the famous British brand had come under the control of Genii Capital, an investment management and financial advisory firm founded by… Gérard Lopez and his partner Éric Lux. Rather than carefully managing his communications to facilitate his approach, Lille’s future owner chose to lock them down. He even hired a prominent strategic communications consultancy to act as a filter and cut off adverse publicity by issuing denials and exercising rights of reply. This 44-year-old businessman, who made his fortune in the digital economy, likes discretion. He said so before microphones and cameras during last Friday’s handover with Michel Seydoux: “This will be the first and one of the last times I speak to the press.” He probably had little desire either for his image to be tarnished by too many revelations about his financial manoeuvres. “He knows that world very well,” observes a Luxembourg specialist in this type of activity. “He knows how to raise funds discreetly and is very good at covering his tracks. But that does not prove he is dishonest.” Quite so. Yet grey areas remain. HE HAS HIRED A SPECIALIST FIRM TO CUT OFF ADVERSE PUBLICITY JUDICIAL INVESTIGATIONS Opened by the Luxembourg judicial authorities in June 2015, an investigation is under way into the movement of €2 million between the Lotus team and Club Sportif Fola Esch, then into the accounts of a Hong Kong company, Lynx Investments. In 2007, Lopez took over this modest Luxembourg Second Division club. The transaction reportedly attracted the attention of UEFA’s club licensing control body. Far from seeing possible money laundering, an internal source at the Luxembourg federation speaks instead of “unfounded accusations and an act of jealousy, nothing more”. We shall see. In its edition of 21 November 2015, Le Républicain lorrain reported that Nancy’s regional criminal investigation service had arrested the main figures involved in the abduction of a young woman from her home in summer 2014 while she was with a friend, namely Gérard Lopez. The young woman was returned to her parents’ home a few days later. Among those placed under formal investigation was a man recorded as having links to organised crime and suspected of participating in a spectacular diamond theft on the tarmac at Brussels Airport in early 2013: Marc Bertoldi. According to police, he allegedly orchestrated the entire affair to extort money from the man who was still then the head of the Lotus team. A sum of €5.5 million was mentioned at the time. A straightforward attempted extortion, or scores being settled through an intermediary? According to a specialist in Corsican affairs who worked on the case, the question deserves to be asked. FOOTBALL LEAKS ON THE CASE At the beginning of this week, some of the mystery surrounding the Lopez galaxy might be partially lifted through Football Leaks, the vast collection of documents made available to a consortium of European media outlets by an anonymous source. The research carried out would provide an insight into the labyrinth of companies with which the name of the Esch-sur-Alzette native is directly or indirectly associated. Mediapart and Lille-based website Médiacités, together with our colleague Yann Fossurier of France 3 Nord-Pas-de-Calais, have spent considerable time examining and cross-checking the many materials made available to them. They were waiting for replies to some forty questions put to the businessman’s highly assertive lawyers before publishing the results of this collective work. It will almost certainly discuss Victory Soccer Limited. Under the structure envisaged by Lopez, this company is to acquire all the LOSC shares held by Michel Seydoux (more than 55%), Financière Partouche (40%) and small shareholders including Jacques Attali’s son. According to the UK company register, Gérard Lopez does indeed appear as one of the directors of Victory Soccer Limited, whose registered office is in London. But Lopez is reportedly not the sole shareholder of a company said to be owned in reality by Chimera Consulting Limited, an opaque entity domiciled in Hong Kong. According to Médiacités, Genii Group, the company founded by Lopez and Lux, is implicated in the Panama Papers through one of its subsidiaries, Gravity Sport Management. This company is reportedly mentioned in the documents released from the firm Mossack Fonseca. ACADEMY AND TRADING For Joëlle Monlouis, a lawyer specialising in sports law who has worked extensively on third-party ownership of players (TPO, now prohibited by FIFA), this highly sophisticated puzzle and this way of skating close to the line confirm that “financiers are trying to find even more elaborate systems and products for investing in football. We are seeing a clash between two worlds,” she continues. “On one side, financiers concerned only with profitability and money; on the other, governing bodies and sports lovers who do not want these people to take over their sport. Yet clubs are sometimes vulnerable, so great is their need for money. Financiers therefore come in and buy these exhausted clubs, because football is a new El Dorado for them in terms of profitability. One could almost speak of exploiting a position of weakness. As a result, we encounter a conflict-of-interest problem long before we even reach the issue of investment funds.” According to a study by the Football Observatory, Lille has sold €210 million worth of players since 2010. During his press conference, Gérard Lopez outlined his project and said he “wanted to recruit young players in building the team”, because Lille’s academy “offers an incredible working platform for integrating young people aged fourteen to twenty-one”. To increase their value and then transfer them at a substantial profit? The identities of Gérard Lopez’s inner circle provide some revealing indications. New sporting adviser Luís Campos is a Portuguese networker at the heart of the football business system and close to Jorge Mendes, Cristiano Ronaldo’s influential agent. Promoted to managing director, Marc Ingla is Barcelona’s former marketing director. He remains a member of the management board of investment fund Mangrove Capital Partners and a director of Kick 28 _ TUESDAY 17 JANUARY 2017 _ FF