Strasbourg fans on Liam Rosenior’s potential exit and comparisons with INEOS-owned Nice

“It’s been a really good thing because we have money that we didn’t have before, so we can grow. But now with the news that Liam Rosenior might go, I’m sad and disappointed. It’s going too far if he leaves. If he goes, then I’m going to be angry and I know all the supporters feel the same way.”

Aurelie Briot, 39, was speaking to The Athletic from the away section of OGC Nice’s Allianz Riviera on Saturday night, where Rosenior’s side were held to a 1-1 draw.

The draw means Strasbourg remain seventh in the table, but all the focus was on Rosenior and where his future lies. As reported by The Athletic, he is the frontrunner to replace Enzo Maresca at Chelsea.

For Strasbourg’s travelling fans, his exit for the role at Stamford Bridge would mark a major step in the already divisive multi-club setup that exists between the two clubs.

“It’s a bit of a disaster if he goes — he should stay at our place,” says fan Clarence Friedrich. “It’s not good for him, it’s not a good thing for Strasbourg. In the middle of the season, it shouldn’t be possible.”

BlueCo, a consortium led by Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital, bought Strasbourg in summer 2023 for €76.3million (£66.5m; $89.5m), a year after completing their purchase of Chelsea for £4.25bn.

The controversial model is designed to benefit both clubs, but it has created divisions within Strasbourg’s passionate fanbase.

Against Nice, Strasbourg’s travelling fans started the game with what is now their usual 15-minute silent protest against their owners, holding up ‘BlueCo Out’ signs and a banner reading ‘non à la multipropriété’ (no to multi-ownership).

Since their takeover, BlueCo have invested heavily in Strasbourg. Last summer they spent a club-record €127.5m on new players in the summer transfer window, more than any other Ligue 1 side, while they are bolstered this campaign by three Chelsea loanees in goalkeeper Mike Penders, defender Mamadou Sarr (who was a Strasbourg player last season) and Kendry Paez.

Off the pitch, they have also spent €160m renovating the club’s Stade de la Meinau, with the creation of a 11,000-seater south stand, designed by architect firm Populous, who also designed the Tottenham Hotspur stadium.

Last season saw Rosenior guide Strasbourg to a seventh-place finish, which meant they qualified for the Europa Conference League. They achieved that with a squad with the lowest average age across the top five leagues in Europe.

This season they are seventh again, while they topped the Europa Conference League table with five victories and a draw.

However, there have been some controversies. Chelsea agreed a deal to sign star striker Emmanuel Emegha at the end of the season and he was then pictured holding up a Chelsea shirt at their training ground. Following that, Strasbourg’s fans held up a banner saying ‘Emegha, pawn of BlueCo. After changing shift, give back your captain’s armband.’ That was the 12th transfer between the clubs, The Athletic previously reported.

Rosenior called that banner “unacceptable”.

“Emmanuel Emegha was devastated and so was I,” he said in his post-match press conference at the time. “My players deserve much more. They have an impeccable mindset and do not deserve this treatment.”

Emanuel Emegha will join Chelsea next season (Frederick Florin/AFP via Getty Images)

But while that angered the fanbase, for many the idea of Rosenior also moving to Chelsea feels like the point of no return.

“The overall fan reaction to this is very negative and it’s negative across the board, which is something that’s quite new,” Alexandre, a spokesperson for one of the four Strasbourg supporters’ organisations, tells The Athletic. “Before, the fanbase was quite split.

“We have been very outspoken in our opposition to everything that BlueCo has been doing in Strasbourg and the fact we are being used as a reserve team for Chelsea. The general public, until then, had a more casual approach. They were saying: ‘We don’t like multi-club ownership, but the football is good and we have this young, ambitious and fresh gaffer.’

“But what I’m seeing now is those people, who were run-of-the-mill before, right now they are furious. They feel the way we felt two years ago. If it happens, it’s going to infuriate most of the fanbase.

“We are very much the junior partner in the setup. Whereas it’s the Emegha transfer, or if they take our manager, we will always be the little brother.

“You see players being transferred, but a manager, that’s not the same thing. Ironically, Rosenior was very possessive about this team. He was always saying: ‘It’s my team, these are my players’, and right now it looks like he could jettison them in a flash because he might have an opportunity to go to Chelsea. That’s sad, very sad.”

Speaking in the post-match press conference after Strasbourg’s 1-1 draw with Nice, Rosenior said that “if something happens, it happens” while adding how he’d be an “alien” not to realise there has been heavy speculation linking him to the vacancy at Chelsea.

He said he’d enjoyed the best 18 months of his professional career at Strasbourg, describing it as a “world-class” club.

“This club is a huge club that’s growing,” the 41-year-old said. “And I’ve been privileged to be manager of this football. And until somebody tells me or something changes, I’ll still be privileged in this moment.”

Rosenior, pictured during Saturday’s 1-1 draw in Nice (Frederic Dides/AFP via Getty Images)

Nice, who are also part of a multi-club model under the ownership of INEOS, Manchester United’s minority owners, are in a far stickier situation than Strasbourg, both domestically and in Europe.

Having finished fourth in Ligue 1 last season, they are currently 13th and on a terrible run. They had lost six Ligue 1 matches in a row, a dismal sequence they halted with the Strasbourg draw.

They have also lost all six of their Europa League games and are bottom of the 36-team league stage. Their supporters are also angry, albeit for different reasons.

The main frustration is their side’s woeful run of results, but they are also annoyed by what they feel is a lack of communication from INEOS, the club’s owners since August 2019.

In May last year, The Athletic reported that Sir Jim Ratcliffe was exploring a sale of Nice, hiring investment bank Lazard to find a buyer.

That came just two months after Ratcliffe gave an interview to The Times where he told the newspaper: “I don’t particularly enjoy going to watch Nice because there are some good players, but the level of football is not high enough for me to get excited. The best season that Nice has had is this one, where we’ve not been allowed to get involved because of multi-club ownership rules. They’ve been so much better without our interference!”

Last season, as both Manchester United and Nice were playing in the Europa League, UEFA put forward a temporary arrangement that saw a “blind trust” operate Nice.

The Athletic has been told by sources familiar with the situation that those comments went down very badly internally at Nice, especially as the club were fourth at the time and on track for a Champions League finish. That was also because there was then no official communication either denying or justifying the remarks.

Since then, and with INEOS still actively looking to sell Nice, it’s left the club in limbo.

Sir Jim Ratcliffe pictured at a Nice game in 2020 (Valery Hache/AFP via Getty Images)

Nice’s Ultras group, La Populaire Sud, have boycotted matches since December 4. They were still absent when The Athletic attended last night’s match at home to Strasbourg, although they have announced a gradual return, beginning with the Toulouse away game on January 17.

As results nosedived at the end of last year, matters reached boiling point following Nice’s 3-1 defeat at struggling Lorient on November 30.

Hundreds of irate Nice fans confronted the team bus when it returned to the club’s training centre following the match. A police investigation was subsequently opened after complaints filed by two players, who claimed they were “punched, kicked and spat on”.

The Athletic reported at the time how particular anger was directed at strikers Terem Moffi and Jeremie Boga, as well as Florian Maurice, the club’s sporting director. Moffi and Boga, two big-money signings, have not played for the club since the Lorient game.

In a statement, Nice condemned the “unacceptable behaviour” of the supporters in the “strongest terms”.

That incident set off a chain of events that first resulted in president Fabrice Bocquet leaving his position on December 20, followed by manager Franck Haise nine days later.

In their place have come two returning presidents in Jean-Pierre Rivere and Maurice Cohen, as well as Claude Puel, who managed the club between 2012 and 2016 before spells at Southampton and Leicester City.

Claude Puel, a familiar name to Premier League fans, has returned to Nice (Frederic Dides/AFP via Getty Images)

“There’s a lot of work to be done,” Rivere said in a statement on the club’s website. “Maurice and I share a love for this club, a love for this city. We also have to respect the club’s owners. Since their arrival, INEOS have invested €400million in the club. That’s a lot of money. And INEOS has always been there for us during difficult times. Jim has become aware of certain issues and the club’s current predicament.

“That’s what a true partner is: people who are still there when you need them and who are ready to help us. The goal is to stay in Ligue 1. OGC Nice must be in Ligue 1 and nowhere else.”

“Jean-Pierre and I are coming in like a commando unit until the end of the season, to do everything we can to recreate the spirit of Nice and a positive mindset,” Cohen added in a statement also on the club’s website.

That position is a marked contrast from the bullish talk after INEOS bought Nice in August 2019 for €100m, when they had grand plans to challenge Paris Saint-Germain at the top of Ligue 1. That ambition was later scaled back with the objective to qualify for Europe, before the project finally shifted to try and improve the financial situation.

That essentially meant trying to minimise costs while maximising revenue. For example, last summer saw Nice sell forward Evann Guessand, who had come through their academy, to Aston Villa for a fee worth €35m.

A senior club figure, who wishes to remain anonymous to protect relations, told The Athletic there was no real link up between the teams owned by INEOS, with no players moving between Nice and Manchester United, for example.

“It’s frustrating but I understand why,” they said. “They had a tough year last year with Manchester United and so their main objective is to stabilise and improve the performance of United. It is Jim Ratcliffe’s club. They also don’t own 100 per cent of United, the Glazers have no interest with Nice, or with Lausanne, so that also makes it more complex. The objective is to move on from Nice.”

Evann Guessand left Nice for Aston Villa in the summer (Sylvain Thomas/AFP via Getty Images)

They said it was difficult for the owners to communicate because of the ongoing sale process, although that was a source of frustration.

They added how the French TV rights saga, which saw DAZN scrap their domestic deal after just one season and the launch of Ligue 1+, had hurt all French clubs, making a sale even more complicated.

The Athletic has contacted INEOS for a response.

Despite the gloom, there were grounds for optimism in Puel’s first match back on Saturday evening, with an improved performance and a sizzling debut goal for January signing Elye Wahi, who is on loan from Eintracht Frankfurt.

“We have a new trainer, a new president, so hopefully it’s going to be a new start and things are going to change,” Nice supporter Christophe Niard told The Athletic after the game.

However, for these two proud French clubs, there is understandable concern about the general direction of travel.