Troubled times again for PSG as Villeneuve resigns
January 23rd, 2009 Posted in Soccer newsParis Saint-Germain president Charles Villeneuve will resign from the troubled French club next month after losing a boardroom tussle against the club’s main backer, Colony Capital.
PSG announced on its Web site late Thursday that Villeneuve will step down on Feb. 3, and a new president and board will be chosen that day.
With results improving and the fans behind the team, the last thing Paris Saint-Germain needed after two years combatting relegation and fan violence was a boardroom crisis.
But a bitter clash with Sebastien Bazin of Colony Capital – which owns over 60 percent of shares in the club – has overshadowed events at a time when PSG was pushing hard for a Champions League place, being in sixth place in the French league and only two points behind third-place Marseille.
Villeneuve remains a popular figure among fans and players alike – he was instrumental in signing Claude Makelele, Ludovic Giuly and Stephane Sessegnon – while Bazin was viewed with skepticism by fans who question whether Colony Capital shares Villeneuve’s passion for the club.
As captain, Makelele this week demanded an explanation as to what was really happening behind the scenes at PSG, a club beset by fan violence for two decades.
“An explanation has to be given to the staff and notably to us, the players,” Makelele told RTL radio station. “It’s the least they could do to explain what’s happening at the club.”
The rift surfaced late last week, when Villeneuve addressed the board’s perceived lack of ambition in an internal letter, requesting more funds and greater control of spending policy in order to attract big names.
Bazin was reportedly furious at this open criticism of the club’s strategy and incensed that Villeneuve was speculating to bring Arab investment to PSG, which sports daily L’Equipe says has lost ?224 million ($291 million) over the last seven years.
As the main shareholder, it was Bazin’s job to find investors and not Villeneuve’s.
Bazin could now take over or choose a successor to Villeneuve, a former television journalist with influential friends in football, such as Arsenal coach Arsene Wenger.
It was reported that Villeneuve could have countered Bazin by finding a new backer and using his fan support to alienate Bazin. But this now seems improbable.
PSG’s fans have flexed their muscle before, pressuring president Francis Graille, along with coach Vahid Halihodzic and security chief Jean-Pierre Larrue, when all three quit in 2004 as tension reached breaking point at Parc des Princes.
The PSG fans during Sunday’s 2-1 home win over Sochaux made their feelings known that Villeneuve had their support, while Bazin did not and was viewed as passionless and too calculating.
This all left the players feeling confused.
“We want to know where the club is going,” goalkeeper Mickael Landreau said. “We have some questions as to what is going on. Everyone wants to understand and to know what shape we’ll be in at the end of the season.”
Furthermore, PSG’s notoriously violent hooligan element has been involved in brutal clashes.
This raises fears that mob violence was on the rise again at PSG, a little over two years after the shooting death of PSG fan Julien Quemener – allegedly involved in a racist attack on a Jewish fan – prompted a government clampdown.
Several dozen of PSG’s hooligan mob were given bans ranging from 12 to 18 months in the wake of Quemener’s shooting by an off-duty policeman trying to protect the Jewish fan from an angry mob.
These bans have now elapsed and violence has come back.
Before a UEFA Cup match against Dutch club FC Twente on Dec. 18, about 150 PSG thugs clashed in the city’s historical center against a similar number of Dutch fans – in what appeared to be a prearranged meet – in broad daylight. Iron bars and belts were used, and bottles thrown, putting Christmas shoppers in the packed street at risk.
Later that evening, a 300-strong mob of PSG hooligans clashed with riot police for more than an hour outside Parc des Princes as they attempted to break through police lines to fight with Twente’s thugs, and tear gas was used.
This month, eight PSG fans were handed prison sentences ranging from two weeks to one month after 100 PSG hooligans attacked about 150 Bordeaux fans at their clubhouse on the eve of an away match on Jan. 10, leaving four Bordeaux fans with minor injuries.
