AC Ajaccio, based in the Mediterranean island of Corsica, plays in the same league as teams owned by the billionaire Arnault family and footballing superstar Kylian Mbappe. Only two years ago, it was playing Leo Messi’s Paris Saint-Germain.
Now it’s for sale for just €1. There’s a catch. The club’s adviser, Jordan Mathias of CMM Partners, says he’ll take offers from buyers who are also able to take on the debt of the club. This is around €8 million.
Second division team AC Ajaccio was founded around 1910, and in 1967 became the first Corsican club to play in France’s top division. But trophies have been few and far between.
Like many French clubs AC Ajaccio is in a financial mess. In December the DNCG, the game’s financial watchdog, pronounced a precautionary relegation at the end of the season if it didn’t get its finances in order, along with a ban on recruiting players.
French football clubs have been plagued by low revenue from TV rights, a major source of income for European teams. This year’s broadcast deal was worth around half what the clubs had been told they could expect. AC Ajaccio also suffered the loss of a major sponsorship contract
A representative for Ajaccio didn’t return requests for comment.
AC Ajaccio has played on and off in the elite and second leagues these past decades. It has been owned by the local Holding company Ajaccio Imperial Corse Investissement, chaired by Alain Orsoni, a Corsican politician.
The two main clubs located on Corsica are especially suffering. Besides Ajaccio, SC Bastia has been hit by similar sanctions from the the DNCG in November following treasury issues.
Still, the travails of smaller European teams hasn’t put off American investors.
American investor Glenn Straub, based in Palm Beach, Florida, is interested in a possible takeover of the club, according to his adviser Jose Lambiet. Straub is set to watch the team’s match against En Avant Guingamp on Saturday.
Now 78, Straub began his career by taking over his father’s taxi company. He is linked to the company that runs the Miss America beauty pageant which in November filed for bankruptcy.
Lambiet says Straub likes to buy distressed assets and that he’d been looking for some time to buy a team in Europe. He has recently been in discussions over possibly buying Belgium’s Standard de Liege.
“The people connected to Ajaccio met us at the airport,” Lambiet said. “They seemed so happy that somebody was paying attention to them.”
- Washington Post
