“We were going a thousand an hour. We were the fastest in the world.” In the documentary that Amazon Prime Video devotes to Guy Roux, the former boss of AJ Auxerre, Gérard Bourgoin, recounts in great detail the journeys of the Burgundian team in his private jet, from the 1980s. Bourgoin, vacuum-packed poultry tycoon, learned to fly the plane after having his license revoked for repeated speeding. In his cockpit, no radar placed on the clouds to prevent him from pressing the button.
“That’s what made our strength, we had a greater possibility of recovering. One hour by plane against fifteen hours by bus”, describes the club’s golden age goalkeeper, Lionel Charbonnier. Even if it means wiping off a few drops of sweat during daredevil landings: “I saw a Boeing arrive in front of us one day when we were landing at Le Bourget”continues Charbonnier, who recalls the precautionary principle recommended by the Burgundy coach: “I was in one jet, my replacement was in another jet. It was well separated, because if there was a crash, Guy Roux was left with half the team.”
That it seems far away, this time when AJA was a precursor, far from the clumsy jokes on the “sailing tank” of Christophe Galtier, the PSG coach. In the mid-1980s, very few teams in France could boast of having a jet available, without going through an airport waiting room or endless bus journeys. Bernard Tapie’s jet, OM era, has also entered the legend of French football … in particular for its role in a number of transfers. Alain Giresse, historical playmaker of the Girondins de Bordeaux, remembers on RMC of the Marseille boss’s offer to snatch him from his lifelong club: “Bernard Tapie said to me: ‘You see, all weekend you will have it, the private plane. You can come back to Bordeaux by jet. (…) When I went down to Marseille, I came down with his jet and he was the one piloting it. He was a character.”
The football business is still in its infancy and private jets are logically found in clubs owned by billionaires. Silvio Berlusconi’s AC Milan and, further from us, Pelé’s New York Cosmos, owned by Warner Bros, whose boss lends a logistical hand to his stars in a country where distances between cities can be considerable. And not only that: Pelé and his orchestra also go at the expense of the princess to the 1978 Super Bowl – as English midfielder Steve Hunt recounts in his memoirs* – or to lavish parties where women and children are turned away after 11 p.m. .
It was at the turn of the 21st century that the private jet became the preferred mode of travel for footballers, under the combined impetus of football business, the expansion of team staff and the – relative – democratization of rental. of planes. In his autobiography*, the former star of the England team Rio Ferdinand recounts having discovered this luxury when he arrived in 2000 at Leeds United, a club then in the throes of delusions of grandeur. “We weren’t allowed private jets at West Ham”, yet another solid resident of the Premier League, writes the ex-defender. The rain of money falling on English football trickles down on the players and on the clubs. Thus, the English midfielder Kieron Dyer, at the heart of a fiercely negotiated transfer from Newcastle to West Ham, was able to make the round trip between his club and his home every day by private jet *.
The “Galacticos” of Real Madrid, they tried in 2007 to offer a plane to the first team. Its nickname, “La Saeta” (“The Arrow”), was not particularly well chosen. In addition to its age – about twenty years at the time – the machine was particularly noisy (link in Spanish)… to the point of being deprived of night take-offs in certain airports for sensitive residents, such as Athens (Greece) or Bremen (Germany). A situation that forces Fabio Cannavaro’s Merengue to sleep abroad after a European match. An unprecedented situation (excluding the final) since the beginning of the 1980s. At the end of the season, the sports daily AS revealed (link in Spanish) that the company Swiftair, which provides the plane to the club, uses the device flocked in the colors of Real to transport soldiers or deport foreigners in an irregular situation. “La Saeta” ends up on the sidelines after only one season.
Today, only a handful of clubs, often sponsored by an airline, like Arsenal*, have their own aircraft. Even if it means making fifteen-minute jumps to Norwich, in 2015, in defiance of any ecological consideration. At the time, associations like Plane Stupid had already pointed out* that the same journey was feasible in two hours by train.
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For the bulk of European teams, the strategy is to rent private jets on a case-by-case basis. Even if it means having any bad results fall on the club’s dedicated service. When Thomas Tuchel’s Chelsea tripped over the carpet in Leeds (0-3) at the end of August, the German coach did not hesitate* to deplore having had to travel the 250 km necessary to reach the Yorkshire by bus rather than by private plane, for lack of having been able to find a device large enough to embark the whole team. “Everything that could go wrong has gone wrong”sighed the former PSG coach, who was finally thanked by the English club on Wednesday September 7.
One solution to accelerate the ecological transition at the top of European football could be to take inspiration from the drastic instructions of the very egalitarian MLS, the North American championship. Clubs are only allowed to charter a private plane eight times during the season* (it was four until last season, and exemptions are authorized in the event of extreme weather or the absence of a solution with commercial flights), describes the Guardian*.
Should’ve flown out of Vancouver last night after early kickoff.
Instead, we wake up at 4:45 am, spend all day in airports (connect in Toronto) & on airplanes w/ no legroom cross country, and just finally landed back in Philly.
What a great recovery day. ♂️#MLStravel pic.twitter.com/iiyU81wVf0— Alejandro Bedoya (@AleBedoya17) April 28, 2019
In such a big country, it sometimes turns into a nightmare and makes some players grumble. “What a great recovery day!”tweeted, sarcastically, the defender of Philadelphia Alejandro Bedoya. “We should have left Vancouver last night after the final whistle. Instead, we got up at 4:45 and spent the day in airports and planes with no legroom…”
* All these links refer to content in English