On the phone, a joke in the preamble: "Are you calling to ask me to speak about the RCT or the Toulon Sporting club?" " Almost two months ago, Mourad Boudjellal already ceded the rank of main shareholder of the Toulon Rugby Club (RCT) to another businessman, Bernard Lemaître. At the end of the season, he is also preparing to entrust him with the presidency of what he still considers to be " his baby ".
But, if Mourad Boudjellal is polarizing discussions this winter, it is especially around the Sporting club of Toulon. Rather surprising, at first glance, being a semi-professional football team. A team that has disappeared from the first division since 1993. And now a good last in the National 1 championship, the third French level, still without a single victory in eighteen games.
Claude Joye, said he was "ready to open up capital significantly" and to be "in negotiations with large European and extra-European fortunes"
The leader first made the announcement in the daily Var-Matin : here he is officially a candidate, since January 13, for the takeover of the main local football club. A month earlier, in the same newspaper, he simply cited Sporting as " a track ".
Contacted by The world the Wednesday, January 22, the interested party invokes "The need for a new project". Maybe already "The sixty years crisis" which he will celebrate on June 5. Launch a publishing house specializing in comics, already done, in 1989. Take over an institution in Ovalie, already done in 2006, with the results we know: recovery in the first division, then three titles in the European Cup and another in the French championship.
For him, it is understood: “I am carried by a wind which wants me to recover Sporting. " An example : "Just as recently, a young pharmacist said to me," If you take over the club, tell me, and I will sign up again. " It took incredible proportions, it aroused such a craze, I can no longer walk without being told about it. And as said (the Italian singer) Angelo Branduardi, “I go where the wind takes me”. "
Objective: league 1
It is however to forget a little quickly that the football club already has a majority shareholder, who intends to remain so: Claude Joye indicates that he has already invested 6 million euros since 2011 and the recovery in the sixth division. "Sporting is not for sale", underlines its press release of January 20. Budget for the current season: at least 2.5 million euros, according to the manager. The current boss says, however "Ready to open up capital significantly". First to enter Ligue 2 and find the professional level. Then Ligue 1. Speech very optimistic, while the classification at mid-season rather directs it straight in the opposite direction: towards relegation in the fourth division. "I am negotiating with large European and extra-European fortunes", tells Claude Joye to World. Implied: with more silver interlocutors than the future ex-patron of rugby, a sport where money circulates in smaller proportions.
