There seems to be a not-for-profit association for everything in France, from amateur mycology to choral music and international disaster relief. There were one and a half million Associations Loi 1901 at the last count, which equates to one for every 48 inhabitants, with 60,000 to 70,000 new groups created each year. They constitute an essential part of the fabric of French society, a natural response to every kind of need felt by local communities – except when it comes to organised football.
This is odd, considering professionalism was introduced by the French FA as late as 1932 after a decade of hand-wringing and it would have been natural for practitioners of the game to take the matter in their own hands. Yet in France, club ownership at all but the lowest level has always been the preserve of private individuals, local authorities and, a very French trait, businesses that have set up teams for their employees, the corporate football or corporate footballwhich has its own leagues and federation.
What is missing from the picture is clubs run and owned by their members, similar to those in Spain, Sweden or Germany; or, more accurately, what was missing until recently when fan groups started to organise themselves in groups of pity (the abbreviation of member) in order to purchase shares of their clubs.
It is too early to speak of a phenomenon sweeping through the French football pyramid as only 10 of them have joined the Federation of Socios of Francewhich was created in October 2023.
If they are still few, their names are etched in French football history. En Avant Guingamp, two-time winners of the French Cup in the 21st century, lead the way with 18,000 paid-up members of their shareholding group, Kalons (“kalon” means “heart” in Breton). Three others are now part-owned by their fans: Sochaux-Montbéliardtwice French champions and Uefa Cup semi-finalists; BastiaCorsica’s most-famed club, Uefa Cup finalists in 1978; and 126-year-old Rouen.
Five of the six others – Nîmes Olympique, Nancy Lorraine, Ajaccio, Metz and Girondins de Bordeaux – are considering allowing supporters to take a stake. The sixth, Saint-Étienne, are on their way in doing so, with the support of club greats Michel Platini and Jean-Michel Larqué. Fans have until 15 September to contribute to a €150,000 (£130,000) fund that will enable them to buy the shares of an anonymous minority stakeholder. Under 16s can join the initiative for €6. There is every indication the target will be met by the deadline date.
One thing these historic clubs share – with the exception of Guingamp, a unique case in French football, where a 19,000-capacity stadium is often full in a city of 8,000 – is that they are all facing financial difficulties of such magnitude that some are or were in danger of disappearing altogether.
The name Nîmes fans chose for their association is revealing in this regard: The collective saves the Olympic Nîmes. Girondins were relegated to the fourth tier by the French regulator last August. Bastia had fallen even lower in 2017, to the fifth tier, when the new owners, the three Ferrandi brothers, decided to open the shareholding to fans, who had to contribute a minimum of €50 each.
Partnering with local companies and the city’s council, now a shareholder in its own right, the 1,800 “popular shareholders” helped rebuild it around a unique cooperative model, putting action in the Bastiais community at the heart of their project. Bastia are now back in Ligue 2. Fans sit on the board, where they hold 20% of the voting rights.
Something similar happened in Sochaux, which went in freefall after Peugeot, its historic owner and the largest employer in the region, sold the club it had founded for its workers in 1928 to the Chinese company Ledus in 2015. Eight years later, Sochaux, demoted to the third tier by the regulator, was all but dead. A small group of local businessmen stepped in. Perhaps inspired by the example of Bastia, they decided to call on the fans to contribute to the rebuilding process. Those fans raised the €800,000 that saved the club from liquidation. The Sociochauxas they call themselves, now number 11,000.
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This trend could be seen as an indictment of the sorry state of professional football in France, which has lived beyond its meagre means for decades, welcomed dubious investors from abroad in hope of a quick fix and is now caught in an almighty tangle about its main source of revenue: broadcasting rights.
When all else is lost, turn to the only people who can be trusted to put their clubs first, sell them a share of what they already own, emotionally speaking, then ignore them again. The new pity do not feel that way. They talk about the reality of reconnecting with institutions that had drifted away from them, but also reconnecting with those whom they would otherwise live alongside, but not with, in a fractured society. Mathilde, a 45-year-old Sociochaux told Libération: “It is about building something with people who slip a different voting paper in the ballot box. Those spaces are rare.”
What is happening is not just a conjunction of one-offs brought on by economical necessity, as was the case with Portsmouth in England or Real Oviedo in Spain. It is a genuine trend, a seed sown in fertile ground, in keeping with the French inclination for collective enterprise, a reason for hope when there is not much of it going around.
