“The Red Star is a common good that cannot be sacrificed on the altar of profit”

HASver its one hundred and twenty-five years of existence, the Red Star has known glory, popular enthusiasm, but also shipwrecks and many disappointments. This chaotic history makes it an atypical club, which reminds all football lovers that another football is still possible.

However, this space out of time is threatened by the takeover of the club by the American investment fund 777 Partners. On April 6, we learned with amazement through a terse press release of the entry into exclusive negotiations between Patrice Haddad, now the club’s former majority owner, and an investment fund based in a tax haven headed by Josh Wanders, already owner or shareholder of clubs in Brazil, Belgium, Spain or Italy.

On the evening of May 11, Red Star FC was officially sold to 777 Partners. French football has become a new El Dorado for these financial predators. The construction of affiliated clubs is essential in the four corners of the globe as the new fashionable economic model making it possible to plunder training centers, to speculate, to multiply transfers and opaque transactions between franchised clubs.

Calling football supporters

Meanwhile, the football authorities do not speak and turn a blind eye. This opaque model will inevitably result in conflicts of interest. The legislative power must react and take up this question!

For us, the Red Star is a common good that cannot be sacrificed on the altar of profit. We call on all Red Star supporters and football lovers across the country to block the sale and mobilize to make this fight a national fight against football business and defend another vision of football.