What Manchester United fans should know about Nice under Jim Ratcliffe | French League 1

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Nice was considered the best club in France in the 2016-17 season, when it competed for the Ligue 1 title under coach Lucien Favre, president Jean-Pierre Rivière and transfer specialist Julien Fournier. They were top of the table at Christmas, losing just four games all season – one fewer than PSG – and amassing an impressive 78 points on their way to third place.

Jim Ratcliffe, owner of Ineos chemicals, who says he is in the running to buy Manchester United, bought Nice in 2019. Despite his massive fortune, and the input of Favre, Rivière and Fournier in recent seasons, Nice have been unable to replicate the success they enjoyed before Ratcliffe’s arrival.

In the six years before Ratcliffe bought Nice for €100m, the club finished fourth in Ligue 1 three times. Led by Claude Puel and then Favre, this success was achieved thanks to skilled scouts in France and some lesser-known European leagues, where they cost-effectively acquired talent and developed players to sell at a profit. It’s a model that almost every Ligue 1 club now uses in some form after his success at Nice and more recently at Monaco.

The Ratcliffe era began with a promising fifth-place finish under Patrick Vieira in the short 2019-20 campaign. However, Vieira was sacked by Christmas 2020 as Nice dropped to 11th in the table. Vieira’s assistant, Adrien Orci, took over supervision duties for the rest of the season before the club appointed Christophe Galtier in the summer of 2021. The arrival of the manager who had just won the title with Lille brought hope, but Nice slumped again and had to settle for a place in the Europa League. Their disappointing defeat to Nantes in the Coupe de France final in May precipitated an increasingly chaotic period in Ineos’ management of the club.

Sir Dave Brailsford, former coach of the GP cycling team and now director of sport at Ineos, served as de facto general manager of Nice in the summer. He audited the club and then proceeded to oversee their transfer policy. That scrutiny continued – along with the stunning feud between Galtier and Fournier – the club wasted weeks of valuable time in the transfer market and left scrambling.

The Brailsford review led to the departure of CEO Bob Ratcliffe, Jim’s brother, and Fournier’s transport guru. Galtier might also have been sacked had his old friend Luis Campos not been installed at PSG, essentially allowing him to fail upwards. Galtier had been openly critical of the club’s recruitment prior to his departure, and appeared to have been concerned about the commitment of Ineos and the competence of the people making transfer decisions. The manager reportedly lost faith in Ineos before leaving for Paris Saint-Germain.

With Nice’s coach, sporting director and chief executive gone, former Crystal Palace and Cardiff City manager Ian Moody has been recruited to help with recruitment. He signed a group from the English Premier League. This version of Nice, owned by a separate pharmaceutical company and lacking a real sports director or smart hiring policy, was unrecognizable from the meticulous, methodical machine run by Rivère, Favre and Fournier in 2017.

None of Moody’s’ signings from England met expectations. Midfielders Ross Barkley and Aaron Ramsey jumped between heartbreak and oblivion, while Brentford defender Mads Beek Sorensen’s loan spell was ended without the Dane playing a single minute of competitive football. Nicolas Pepe and Arsenal loanee Kasper Schmeichel proved to be a bit stronger, with Gaetan Laborde and Sofiane Diop – both signed from French clubs – the only bright spots.

A lack of planning and common thinking has left Nice a talented but terribly disjointed team this season. With the atmosphere looking toxic and the team struggling again in mid-table, Nice sacked Favre earlier this month after a humiliating defeat by third-tier Les Puys in the Cup. Despite the many missteps by Eneos, Brailsford and Moody, it should be noted that Favre’s irritating nature also contributed to the team’s ill feeling. The fact that Nice thrashed Montpellier 6-1 in their first game after his departure, under new caretaker manager and former Middlesbrough midfielder Didier Digard, is telling.

The club remains in limbo, with no new permanent manager in place. However, the arrival of Florent Gisolfi as sporting director is something positive. He has masterminded Lens’ recruitment since their successful return to Ligue 1 in 2020. Lens beat Paris Saint-Germain earlier this month and are now just three points behind the league leaders, so Gisolfi comes up with plenty of promise.

Nice fans at the Allianz Rivera Stadium. Photo: Daniel Cole/Associated Press

Would Ratcliffe be a good owner for Manchester United? The club’s fans might argue that anything is better than Glazer family ownership, but there is a long way to go before Ratcliffe buys the club. We’ve been here before. He made a last-minute bid to buy Chelsea last year and there have been reports of interest in Liverpool.

“Ineos is doing a lot of acquisitions,” Bob Ratcliffe said when we interviewed him a few years ago. “Talent is in many ways a willingness to walk away from the bargain if you want to get value. This is very important to us because we will be investing in Nice, but with Financial Fair Play you are limited to what you can invest so you have to get the most out of that investment.” “.

Multiple club ownership complications may also affect any potential deal. Nice and Manchester United have never met in Europe, but that could happen soon, and Ratcliffe also owns Swiss club FC Lausanne Sport as well as Ivory Coast’s Racing Club Abidjan. The multi-club model could benefit United – Rivière admitted last September that “if Nice were the second club after Manchester United, I have no problem with it” – but Nice fans are already tired of becoming a feeder club. Rivière’s statement last summer that a potential Chelsea buy “wouldn’t change anything for Nice” helped a bit.

If Ratcliffe buys United, former Paris Saint-Germain CEO Jean-Claude Blanc is likely to be involved. Blanc, who will become CEO of Ineos Sport next month, brings a wealth of experience in sports management, including two years as CEO of Juventus between 2009 and 2011 before holding the same position at Paris Saint-Germain for 12 years. Paris Saint-Germain president Nasser Al-Khelaifi described Blanc’s contribution as “fantastic” upon his departure at Christmas.

Having taken two months to attend a match even after buying the club, Ratcliffe’s ownership of Nice could be described as “hands-off”. However, his decision-making over the past three years – though admittedly indirectly via Rivière, still a figurehead, his brother and Brailsford – has perpetuated Nice’s slump. The supposed goal of becoming PSG’s main rival in Ligue 1 never seemed to be achieved. In the past twelve months alone, he has sacked Eneos Fournier, Favre and Galtier, while also sidelining the famous and previously successful Rivière.

Less than six years ago, Rivière, Fournier and Favre led the best-run club in Ligue 1, a project that became a model for the rest of the division. The future may be bright for Ness, but there has been a lot of change and even some chaos during Ratcliffe’s reign.

This is an article from Get French Football News. Follow Adam White and GFFN on Twitter

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