Saint-Etienne: how the difficult sale of the Greens exacerbated tensions between Romeyer and Caïazzo

Associated with AS Saint-Etienne since 2004, Roland Romeyer and Bernard Caïazzo, presidents of the management board and the supervisory board, have still not sold the club, eleven months after announcing with great fanfare "a handover to a new shareholder". On the eve of the 124th derby in Lyon, RMC Sport sought to find out why this soap opera, with multiple episodes, has so far not found an epilogue when the sporting situation continues to deteriorate.

Officially, neither has slowed down the sales process throughout 2021. Roland Romeyer said it clearly to Le Progrès on January 7: "No, neither Bernard, nor me , don't want a place in the future organization chart. We don't want jump seats. We just have to bring money", replied the chairman of the ASSE executive board, referring, by his first name, to his historical partner, Bernard Caïazzo, chairman of the supervisory board, according to an organization set up in 2010, less than ten years after their economic "marriage" between 2003 and 2004.

Behind the curtain, this truth does not really take shape. And nothing or almost nothing seems to stick to this idyllic version. Because tongues are loosened over the (missed) acts that punctuate the last eleven months, since this Tuesday, April 13, 2021 in the evening when the two shareholders pass on to the media following the club with ten French championship titles, a letter where the word "sale" does not expressly appear. However, it is a question of "handover", in order "to ensure the continuity and development of our club, we have entrusted KMPG with the mission of selecting the best investor." The company KMPG, a renowned Anglo-Dutch audit firm is in charge of the file: "If they had really wanted to sell, they would have mandated an investment bank accustomed to this type of transaction", notes already, at the time an expert in selling businesses. But since this is the procedure decided by the "sellers", it will have to go through it. Candidates therefore follow the process…

But candidates, there are already some who behind the scenes have spoken with relatives of the club, to explain their desires, assets and programs. RMC Sport evokes in May, after having met its French representatives, the interest of an Asian company. "In-person" meetings are thus set and held from the fall of 2020, well before this announcement. Another candidate, an American company that wants to create an entertainment company via Switzerland from ASSE, is advancing its pawns in the summer of 2021. When other more local projects are also testing the will of shareholders before filing a few first parts to give credibility to their offers to KMPG specialists.

"We pass 1m25, we ask for 1m30"

Each time, among these potential buyers, the same feeling dominates and remains alive when RMC Sport contacts them again at the start of 2022: Roland Romeyer, at the helm and in "face-to-face" since based in Saint-Etienne really wants to sell , but his partner, Bernard Caïazzo, an expatriate in Dubai, is less sure of himself about this desire to escape from the world of football and the League. "It's like in a high jump competition, image an attentive follower of the files: we ask to pass a bar placed at 1m20 to win the competition. We train, we run, we succeed. And to suddenly, we ask for another bar at 1m25. Rebelote, we pass 1m25, we ask for 1m30. It's exhausting…"

One of the competitors, the Asian fund, throws in the towel at the start of summer 2021: "From video exchanges, between November 2020 and June 2021, it was necessary each time to provide other guarantees, without ever step after gaining access to the Dataroom, recalls one of the actors in the case. My client, a very wealthy person from the Asian continent, unfamiliar with this type of operation in his business, took umbrage believing that they are not being respected." In almost all cases, Roland Romeyer works, really for this "handover." He honors a few appointments with the candidates, in particular the "locals", an operation facilitated by the geographical proximity when his friend lives thousands of kilometers from Forez. He wants to move quickly and well with the idea that the buyers ensure the sustainability of the Greens, especially since the weeks do not help his morale, which has fallen over the results at half mast of "his" team, he the absolute fan of ASSE whose logo he has, tattooed on one shoulder.

Bernard Caïazzo is more "detached" from this daily newspaper, the distance has a lot to do with it: "I have never seen the end of his nose", confirms a candidate for redemption. Detached but active. He thus orchestrates a few "shots" like this surrealist who came from a group of people behind Roman Dubov, president of Total Sports Investments in November during ASSE-PSG (1-3): "The Russians simply came to see a Messi match ", scoffs a local connoisseur... Especially since it's a few days after KPMG failed potential buyers who had been entitled to access to (part of) the dataroom, you have to show that you want still sell.

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— صياح بلا هدف محدد Sat Dec 22 16:30:44 +0000 2012

"It's the polar cold"

From there to think that Bernard Caïazzo, behind the scenes, does nothing to facilitate things and save time, those close to the files think it off: "He hopes in the commercial company which will save French football and therefore ASSE and therefore its shares of the cake and therefore its presence in French football", analyzes a source.

But time does not help sporting affairs, the improvement of the two matches won in November against Clermont (3-2) and Troyes (0-1) evaporates in another ongoing series of six consecutive defeats since success in Aube, on November 21... And that undermines even more the "local", Roland Romeyer, very marked by the sporting situation and the sale at a standstill, a little because of his friend: "It's clear that if the two were on the same wavelength, the case was settled for a long time”, judges a source well informed of the progress of the files which evokes a “real dissonance, a real break” between the two men.

"It's the polar cold", notes a familiar while the "sports" pole gathered alongside the third man, Jean-François Soucasse, executive chairman since July 1, 2021 has created a bubble around the new staff and Pascal Dupraz, who like Loïc Perrin who accepted the mission, until June 30 next to save the club, are only focused on saving the place in Ligue 1 for ASSE. And the health bubble is not only valid for this damn virus which infests the life of the athlete's boss: "In any case, the players do not talk about this part of the life of the club, they are like all footballers, passing through and in a mission…”, we testify internally. Neither are the employees, we are assured, affected by this "non-sale": "We have been living with it for a few years already... smiles one of them. I have the impression that it has been 15 years since 'we are talking about it." Not that much, but since 2018 at least this sea serpent has been feeding the chronicle of Saint-Etienne with contacts at the time with Peak 6.

"They do not have the same vision on the profile of future buyers"

Months, weeks and days now that are really wearing out, just like these "17 years of marriage" between the two men, partners since 2004 and co-governors since 2010. "It leaves traces, it's the end of their history and Roland has "big on the potato" of the attitude in his eyes, at best indelicate of his co-shareholder, estimates an evening visitor of the State who sees in the absence of Romeyer in the presidential basket at Geoffroy-Guichard, during the last Ligue 1 match, ASSE-Lens the realization of his current malaise, amplified by his exit from a match just before Christmas by unkind words from the fans in front of Geoffroy-Guichard's gate. governance of the Greens would therefore follow the contours of the time... covid: Roland Romeyer undergoes everything "face-to-face" when his partner experiences "distancial" this growing disenchantment: "He takes all the blows, he sleeps little and he wants perpetuate the club with real connoisseurs and if possible, lovers of the Greens when on the other is playing the clock to save his business", summarizes a source when another refines: "They do not have the same vision on the profile of future buyers."

Thus ended the blessed time of this duo which, like the companions of the series "Friendly yours", Lord Brett Sinclair (Roger Moore) and Dany Wilde (Tony Curtis), always managed to get along in the end after using different ways, even at the antipodes at the start: "They always nourished each other, because the choice of one, if it was judicious, allowed the other to line up behind him in the end; Conversely, a bad decision allowed the other to discard. "The gap has widened since the departure of Christophe Galtier, rewinds an eminent connoisseur of the green chronicle. There was, among many who piled up in the memory box of the followers, the Oscar Garcia episode that Caïazzo chose, in a form of fashion at the time of the foreign coach." Roland Romeyer often tells the rest in private: "He forces me to go to Barcelona to finalize the deal, I discuss with his agents in a lounge at the airport and when we agree, Oscar Garcia arrives to sign without really discussing with him…"

"A sale on pause but inevitable"

The following is the 0-5 in a November 2017 derby and the break with the Spanish technician. Roland Romeyer places his pawn, Julien Sablé, then at the training center. Bernard Caïazzo will never stop wanting to install Jean-Louis Gasset in December while recalling… Christophe Galtier, who left a year before the end of his contract in May of the same year and at the time was not yet seated on the bench. coach at LOSC. Joke of the moment: the chairman of the supervisory board was constantly criticizing in private, Christophe Galtier for his defensive game. Ditto for the succession of Jean-Louis Gasset with each time, a dissociated vision of the partners: where one imagines that the Galtier years (victory in the Coupe de la Ligue in 2013 and series of matches in the Europa League) bring closer the Champions League and that it is therefore necessary to be more ambitious (and therefore more spendthrift…), the other thinks that the economic environment in the Loire necessarily slows down this course… “The gap has widened whereas until then , each was the other's lightning rod", image still a regular.

So in the midst of this state of affairs, with a last chance sporting momentum to launch, why not in the 124th derby this Friday, where is the sale? Inevitably on break, less than five months from the end of the season and therefore the certainty of the floor where ASSE will be in June 2022, the process is dormant: "Who wants to put tens of millions of euros at the moment T when it will be worth much less in the spring, asks a local economic actor.Even someone "serious" (because he has the project and the verified means) who wants to put 80 million now will not appear precisely as … serious !"

Because even if the worst is never certain, the scenario of a descent into Ligue 2 can no longer be excluded. And there, it will take courage to the buyer, explains a specialist in business takeovers. Because it will also be necessary to manage the drop in lifestyle from one floor to another. And there, that means going from a budget of 65M€ to a fortnight. Personally, I don't know how to…"

The sale is therefore on hold, but not frozen because it is inevitable, economically speaking. The soap opera has therefore not finished occupying the radar screens of followers and supporters of the Greens, who for the time of a match this Friday evening 65 kilometers away, will change everyone's mind with the hope that a derby can always launch a dynamic that the chronicle would then install on the board of the history of the rivalry which began in 1951…