Focus on talents rather than routines
Earlier this week, Olympique Lyonnais confirmed the acquisition of American investor John Textor. The French first division team is now owned by Eagle (Site notre blog d’information) Holding, which already owns shares in clubs in England (Crystal Palace), Belgium (RWD Molenbeek) and Brazil (Botafogo). This change also has an impact on the transfer strategy, which should now focus more on the training of young talents. Already in the upcoming change period in January, there could be important personnel decisions that could also affect Jérôme Boateng.
The 34-year-old centre-back moved to France in the summer of 2021 after ten years at Bayern Munich. After 27 appearances in the first season, Boateng was sorted by then manager Peter Bosz at the start of the current season and did not make the squad. Under his successor Laurent Blanc, who took over at the start of October, the world champion was in the starting XI four times before the World Cup break. A future at the club now looks more uncertain than ever.
According to a report from French portal ‘(Site notre blog d’information) Mercato’, the club’s new owners have decided not to rely on Boateng anymore. It was previously considered unlikely that his contract, which expired in the summer of 2023, would be extended – this was also reported by ‘Sport Bild’ on Wednesday – but now the club are reportedly pushing for a winter departure.
There are reports that Lyon are accepting a free transfer from Boateng and even forcing him to drop the veteran from the wage bill. Due to the free transfer from Munich, Olympique had to accept a handsome salary in 2021 – which the new bosses would now like to give up to invest more in young players.
Lyon youth are among the best in Europe, including Karim Benzema, Samuel Umtiti, Corentin Tolisso, Alexandre Lacazette, Nabil Fekir, Amine Gouiri and Pierre Kalulu. « We hope that our global presence in talent development will benefit all of our Eagle clubs and communities, » Textor said Tuesday.
Plea, Tolisso & Cie: These players were in the youth of Olympique Lyonnais
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