France Blue Gironde: You are launching an appeal to the wine sectordoes the wine world have the resources to save the Girondins de Bordeaux?
Benjamin Hessel: We have them, that’s obvious. After what there is the will behind, it is more complicated. But there, we have an economic strike force in Bordeaux which is phenomenal.
François Pinault, owner of Château Latour and Stade Rennais, launched an appeal in April 2021, it did not work. Why don’t we have local entrepreneurs who manage to save our club?
It’s hard to say because I don’t think football is seen as a profitable investment and we don’t have football enthusiasts at the head of the castles. François Pinault is from the Rennes region, he is a sports fan, a football fan, he is passionate and we don’t have that profile here. Unfortunately, because if you take without Château Latour, but the four Premier Grands Crus Classés of Bordeaux, I estimate a profit of 300 million euros per year. It is enormous.
On the one hand, is there a world of wine that is perhaps a little muted, a little elitist, and on the other side, a world of football that can be more turbulent, more popular? And the two can’t find each other.
Yes, I think there is. I think you’re right, but I think they’re not as aware of what’s going on today. It’s an anomaly for me that there aren’t more wine investors in football. But today, we are losing a heritage of the region, a social and cultural link, we should perhaps make them aware of all that. Every two weeks, you have 20,000 people when things are going badly, 30 or 40,000 people when things are going better, who come together, these are memories for everyone. It is a real heritage and we have the possibility of helping it. We must try to motivate this world a little.
We often read on social networks: all these local entrepreneurs, they talk a lot, but they don’t do anything “. It must annoy you but for the moment, it remains a reality, we can’t manage to mobilize entrepreneurship and the local economy at the bedside of our Girondins de Bordeaux?
There are still a few! But let’s say the very big players who could really be useful for the club are not present. It’s true. It’s a shame because when we see an Aulas in Lyon and Nicollin in Montpellier, it’s an approach that could serve the club because we would run it differently. We would serve the club rather than use it. We would think everything differently and I’m sure it’s been viable for the future as well.
Football today brings in more image than money. It’s a show, it’s an image product and there, the world of wine could find its way?
If we take the current model, yes, it’s not profitable, but if we think about it differently with players who would be there for the long term. If you take a pool of fifteen of the biggest properties in Bordeaux, they can come into the club and think together. And handle it like a good family man. It’s completely viable. And then, it is the wine sector in general which could invest in the partnership with the Girondins because I find that there are not enough of us. The club is still doing an excellent job on the network but we can invest a lot more. You put 100 or 150 more owners over a year of partnership, it could represent significant income for the club.