relegation to National, open conflict between the president and the supporters… The slow descent into hell of Olympic Nîmes

“My red line is the National. The club must not fall into the National…” These words of Rani Assaf, pronounced on May 2, 2022, still gave the impression that all was not lost for Olympic Nîmes. A year later, they underline the failure of the club, officially relegated to National after a disastrous season in Ligue 2 (19th), both on the field and outside. The formation which was still evolving in Ligue 1 in 2021 has lost everything, even the support of its supporters.

It’s denied by an audience in open conflict with the president and his sporting and economic vision that she will find the third national level. The days when the team was led by Bernard Blaquart, embodied by players like Renaud Ripart and Téji Savanier and capable of finishing 9th in the French championship (2018-2019) now seem very distant. After three consecutive years of moribund results, the situation is raw.

Open conflict with the public and supporter groups

President Rani Assaf crystallizes the tensions and whose relations with the Nîmes public are eventful. Tiptoeing into Gard in 2014 as a minority shareholder, he became club president in the summer of 2015, just after his predecessor was investigated for match-fixing (and convicted in 2018). On the communication side, his outings are rare and acidic, as when he declared last year: “Sportingly, who has a better record than me over the last 30 years? […] I don’t know how to make up for in 10 days what hasn’t been done in 30 years. I don’t have a magic wand.“

A “progressive fracture” then began for Dimitri Pialat, president of the Gladiators, the main association of supporters. On June 26, 2020, during a press conference, the Franco-Lebanese businessman had thus declared: “I don’t have to answer to anyone […] I have 80% of the club, I am president of the club, I run the club, I do what I want with the club. And it must be clear for the Gladiators, as for everyone.”

Tensions rekindled by the smoke bomb affair, at the start of the 2021-2022 season, which caused the closure of the East weighbridge, the historic stand, where the Gladiators usually sat. “He only dreams of one thing and he said it publicly. He wants the Gladiators to be dissolved through the courts, because we are the most virulent against him. He doesn’t even want us to come to the stadium with or without a tarpaulin”, explains Dimitri Pialat. “It is a first in France to see a president close his popular forum almost indefinitely and openly wage war on his own supporters.

“These people are a cancer for the club”

The only possibility for them to return: the obligation to sign a charter of good conduct. At the same press conference in May 2022, the tone was still raised: “These people are a cancer for the club, we will have to get rid of them and the treatment will be violent and mean.”.

The club has also taken the decision to end subscriptions – replaced by the Grinta Club supra-association led by honorary president Jean-Jacques Bourdin since last season and supposed to offer “advantageous” prices to members – , but also to close the physical counters since the Covid period, or to increase the price of seats in the popular stands since the descent into the second division.

“He has completely cut himself off from the Nîmes public. Even on Facebook or Twitter, you can no longer give your opinion on the official account since February 2022”, retains Modrek Belbachir, one of the active members of the collective. The ability to reply to posts has simply been closed. The latter adds:Another unique case in France, there has not even been a single training session open to the public over the past six months. All that is just lunar…”

A divisive project

A week before the defeat against Dijon (1-2), synonymous with relegation on May 20, there were nearly 300 fervent supporters of Olympic Nîmes who gathered in front of the town hall, at the call of the collective “Save the Olympic Nimes”. Objective: to demand accountability for the sale of the Costières stadium by the municipality to Rani Assaf, for 8 million euros in June 2019, and the signing of an eco-district project as well as a new stadium belonging to him .

The latter has made this new property complex, around the current Costières stadium area, the major focus of his vision for the club in the years to come. A project “vital” according to him, in collaboration with the town hall of Nîmes led by Jean-Paul Fournier (Les Républicains). During the press conference presenting the new stadium, the latter showed that the idea was above all to build an environment (offices, shops, hotels, etc.) capable of generating income and making the club run on its own so that it would no longer be dependent on transfers. A model “Lyon style” and a vision “American style“Spectator sport, with one major exception: the Nîmes Olympique would not officially own its stadium which would belong, like the entire district, to Rani Assaf, via his operating company Nemau.

Many gray areas still persist and theThe sales agreement has had its expiration date extended to December 2024. The fear that Rani Assaf will favor the real estate project over the sporting aspect of the club is thus put forward by the opposition. “By selling him the stadium outright, the municipality gave him the keys without having any means of pressure on him”, analyzes the communist departmental councilor Vincent Bouget. “In his business plan, his project should bring him money after 15 years. Tells him that if he had wanted to make money, that’s not what he would have done. I fear that the town hall has over-committed itself and that it is now impossible to go back.”

On the side of the municipal majority, a change of direction may also be beginning. “As the city of Nîmes, we are in a situation where we cannot interfere in the club. But today it is clear that Rani Assaf is not able to project Olympic Nîmes in the coming years.notes Julien Plantier, the first deputy to the city of Nîmes. “There is a neighborhood construction project intimately linked to a question of sporting dynamics which is not currently there. And above all, what seems most worrying is that we still do not have the slightest intention or projection in the short or medium term.”

A gradual disappearance of Nîmes DNA

Yet very linked to its city, Olympic Nîmes – four times winner of the Gambardella Cup and four times vice-champion of France – saw its public gradually leave the stands. Stadium “provisional” des Antonins, opened in December 2022 and located on the edge of the motorway, has become an open-air desert with the exception of a few encounters (Saint-Etienne, Sochaux, etc.).

Last attendance of Ligue 2 with 1,934 average spectators last season, the Gard club had an even lower occupancy rate than during its previous years of struggles in National (4,000 to 5,000 spectators on average). The training center has also borne the brunt of this cost reduction at all costs with the loss of accreditation, which has caused the departure of the best young people.

“There is a dismantling of everything that is a sports structure inside the club. All of this is an operation that is not even worthy of a National 1 club, but rather of National 2, recognizes Corentin Carpentier, Nîmes merchant and active member of the collective “Save the Olympic Nîmes”. Same observation for a former player and coach of the club, René Girard: “It’s quite surprising and there are things that deserve to be explained more precisely: knowing who wants to do what and how. I’m not a big financier, but where do we want to go with this club? You have to know what we wanna, either a successful first team or a team that lives for other interests outside the club…”

The DNCG as an arbitrator?

For Corentin Carpentier, the way out of the crisis could consist in “denounce” with the DNCG (National Directorate of Control and Management) the agreement and the affiliation number currently linking the club to the Nîmes Olympique association: “We are potentially ready to try to convince the Association to terminate the agreement to start from scratch with a project of socios like in Strasbourg or even in Bastia, and solid local or national buyers with real ambition.

The body would then be forced to automatically demote the club to Regional 1, with an immediate loss of professional status. A kind of “red button” and a last resort to overturn Rani Assaf’s project and start from scratch with local buyers. An ultimatum whose outcome would be a new leap into the unknown.

*Asked, the Nîmes Olympique and Rani Assaf did not wish to answer our questions.