The French football is on the verge of collapse. The DNCG has just released its annual reports for the 2024-2025 season, and the numbers are staggering: 1.4 billion euros in structural losses for 34 clubs from Ligue 1 and Ligue 2 combined. Investigative journalist Romain Molina dissects this financial disaster without filters in his latest video.
The circulating figure in the media, around 466 million euros in final deficit, is already alarming. However, it hides a much darker reality. This result is achieved after selling players – over 800 million euros in capital gains by impoverishing the championship – and after injections of capital from shareholders, sometimes totaling tens of millions. Before all this, the structural deficit, which reflects the true health of the economic model, exceeds 1.4 billion euros. This is only for 34 clubs, as Ajaccio and Martigues, administratively relegated, are not even included in the balance sheets.
Mismanagement, disconnected salary masses from revenues, sometimes record agent commissions, financial opacity: the causes have been known for a long time. The crisis of TV rights has exacerbated the phenomenon, not created it.
The two Olympiques pull down the balance sheet dramatically. Lyon shows 208 million euros in net losses, an absolute record in France. Marseille follows with nearly 105 million. Together, they represent an overwhelming share of the total deficit of Ligue 1.
For Lyon, Romain Molina raises a disturbing question in Ligue 1. How could the DNCG authorize Lyon to spend over 40 million on transfers, while at the same time prohibiting Angers from exercising a simple purchase option for a goalkeeper? This double standard questions the true independence of the French football financial watchdog, and painfully recalls the disastrous management of Girondins de Bordeaux, left to sink without sufficient anticipated reaction.
Marseille, on the other hand, pays the price of costly management without Champions League. 125 million losses before transfers. The warning had been issued long ago: without European revenues, OM cannot sustain itself. The figures confirm this bluntly.
Paris Saint-Germain generates 837 million euros in revenue. This is four to five times more than the largest budgets in the championship. Its wage bill reaches 543 million. Despite the Champions League victory, the club still loses 111 million before transfers. This single figure summarizes the absurdity of the modern football economic model.
Rennes plays the same tune, but more discreetly. Stade Rennais shows 50 million in losses before transfers in its official accounts. In reality, when factoring in agent commissions – nearly 25 million – and transfer amortizations accounted separately like Monaco, the structural deficit rises to around 130 million. A catastrophe confirmed in Ligue 1.
Reims, long praised as a model of virtuous management, is perhaps the most astonishing case. The club generates 40 million in revenue. It spent over 100 million in a season, resulting in a 62 million deficit before transfers. And it has been relegated to Ligue 2. All the while knowing that TV rights would collapse. How can a leadership validate such a lifestyle under these circumstances?
Saint-Étienne doesn’t escape the bleak picture. The Greens lost about 40 million before transfers in their season in Ligue 2. It was the Canadian owner, Larry Tanenbaum, who filled the hole. Without this injection of capital, the scenario could have turned into a financial nightmare.
The question now is simple: with TV rights still decreasing this season, with a return expected to Ligue 1 under Philippe Montanier involving additional investments, how will ASSE balance its books? External shareholder contributions cannot be the sole structural response. Strasbourg, Lorient, Nantes – all currently depend on the generosity of their owners to survive. And the day these owners leave, the club dies.
Ligue 2 is no exception. Caen and Amiens each lose 10 million. Lorient – a subsidiary of Bournemouth – burns 39 million before transfers in the second division. PFC enters Ligue 1 with a 31 million wage bill, more than what Angers earned in total revenue during its season in the elite. Clermont redirects over 25% of its revenue to its owner’s holding through management fees. French football, at all levels, is turned upside down.
There is no viable model. There are only shareholders writing checks, clubs selling their best players to survive, and a financial watchdog whose independence is regularly questioned. Until there is structural change, the next DNCG report will look like the previous one. Even worse.
Source: Romain Molina / DNCG – LFP
ASSE: The Real Truth Behind the Greens’ Accounts.
