Speaking as part of the latest Presidents Podcast episode exclusively on Get French Football News, OGC Nice CEO Bob Ratcliffe explained how the club hierarchy works in terms of transfer decision-making alongside Julien Fournier (Director of Football) and Jean-Pierre Rivère (President) and affirmed that it was the Ligue 1 side’s conscious decision not to retain any of the 2019/20 season’s loan signings, Adam Ounas (Napoli), Moussa Wagué (Barcelona) and Riza Durmisi (Lazio).
“I think when we are talking about transfer targets, we sort of more than triangulate, because the person you didn’t mention there is Patrick (Vieira). It is very important when we bring someone in that he’s very supportive of them. He’s a very smart guy with a lot of presence as you know and he has his own views, so it is important that we hear those views. So I think it is really the four of us who look at those names. At the end of the day, a lot of the homework is done with Julien and his scouting database and we like that and we think that that is key…”
Click Here: new zealand all blacks jersey
“To be honest, we look at INEOS DNA, which is finding value, we think Julien was probably born with that. It’s exactly what we need. One of the issues that we have, when you arrive with the “these are extremely wealthy people” is people think you are going to achieve it through chequebook and that is not what we want to be known for. We want to be known for people who are very thoughtful with what they acquire. And you see with Julien, he lines up a number of players, and that is important to us. If you look at acquisitions, and I spent my life in financial services looking at acquisitions, INEOS does a lot of acquisitions. The talent is in many ways the preparedness to walk away from a deal if you want to secure value. That’s quite important to us, because we will invest in Nice, but through Financial Fair Play, you are necessarily limited to what you can invest, so you have to make the absolute best of that investment. So we will carefully do acquisitions, but alongside that, we need the best academy, we need the best scouting, we need pathways, other pieces that we have either a partnership or an ownership in. And it is all those things knotted together that will hopefully bring us consistent European football.”
On Riza Durmisi, Adam Ounas and Moussa Wagué not being acquired permanently:
I think to be honest, we made that decision. We’re doing a squad rebuild and we want to look at other options.
Listen to the full podcast below: