Thonon Évian FC (France)
Foreign investment groups, brands in club names,
and sugar daddies became quite common in football in the 21st century. Clubs
are usually glad to receive money without worrying about the finances for a
short time. But when the deal ends or the owner spent all his money, it can’t
be undone. The club will probably end up in debt because of the immediate lack
of money they weren’t prepared for. And it’s not only happening far on the East
or in Eastern-Europe, sometimes Western-European sides get into this situation.
The same happened in Thonon-les-Bains in France, when a club was founded by a
famous brand.
We are in Gaillard, France, the year is 2003. The
city’s only football club, FC Gaillard has just dissolved. The club’s biggest
success was winning a regional league back in 1999. It was decided that the
area’s two former football clubs (Gaillard and Ville-la-Grand) deserve a
successor, thus Football Croix-de-Savoie was founded. They had the opportunity
of playing in the 4th tier in their first year thanks to Ville-la-Grand’s
achievements and they finished in the 3rd place which meant they were the only
team from their group to get to the National (the 3rd division), because the
first two clubs were second teams of Lyon and Metz, respectively. The National
turned out to be a much harder task for Croix, finishing only 2 points above
relegated Besancon. But then they finished one point behind Chatellerault in
the 18th place which saw them getting relegated to the CFA. But after another
unsuccessful season, things significantly changed.
In 2007, Croix-de-Savoie joined Olympique
Thonon-Chablais to form a new club, named Olympique Croix-de-Savoie 74, based
in Thonon-les-Bains. The club changed stadium as well that year because their
pitch in Thonon deemed unfit for 3rd division requirements, so Chablais’ pitch
was used instead. In the spring of 2019, the club reached a record-high 108
points and finally climbed back to the National. Then a very rare, unexpected,
and extremely important decision was made: Franck Riboud, president of the
Danone group was made president. His very first thing was to change the club’s
name (there have been a lot of changes already, and there will be further ones)
to Evian Thonon Gaillard Football Club. He then became a hero for the
supporters, significantly growing the club’s budget and helping his academy.
Riboud was very ambitious and that worked: in 2010 the club eventually got
promoted to Ligue 2.
But it can be guessed quickly, that
Thonon-les-Bains’ stadium wasn’t big enough for Ligue 2. The club was forced to
play their home matches in Annecy, the 3rd pitch of Evian in 5 years. They were
in incredible form in the league which became even better after the heroic win
over giants Marseille in the cup. They became champions later that year – even
though they reached a not-so-high 67 points –, which meant they could play the
next season in Ligue 1 for the first time in their history. They prepared for a
long-term Ligue 1 career and it could be seen at the transfers they made. On
the summer of 2011 they signed Christian Poulsen from Liverpool on a free, they
got Daniel Wass on loan from Benfica (now key player at Valencia) or we can say
other exciting names at the time like Rabiu, Kahlenberg or Mensah but the
biggest signing was arguably the former France national team starting player
Sidney Govou from Panathinaikos – on a free, too. If we take into account that
they already had Brice Dja Djédjé and club legend Eric Tié Bi at the club, we
can assume that the club was ready to make its footprints in the French
football.
The club then massively
overachieved the goals of staying up with finishing in the top 10, in a
wonderful 9th place, one above Marseille. Everything seemed to be ok and
no one knew that this is the point where the team started to roll down the slope.
Despite Betao, David JarolÃm, and Ninkovic joining the club, they only finished
in a fairly disappointing 16th place, which was proven to be a sign that their
first-tier football won’t be a long-living one. But we can say that the French
Cup was in the focus for ETG as they reached the club’s biggest ever success by
getting in the final. And they actually had a lot of chance of winning a whole
thing, but their dreams were demolished by Bordeaux’s Diabaté in the last
minute of the match. It earned a UEL place for Bordeaux and could have easily
meant the survival for Evian. The match – and the season – ended, with most of
the ETG fans still hoping of another such successful season like the previous
two.
*ETG –
Even though things weren’t going too good – in all honesty, everything
went really bad behind the curtains – the fans were still optimistic about the
future, however. But now we can see that the big achievement for the club was
to be able to make a last hurrah back then. The last hurrah meant a 13th place
which was unexpectedly high given that the Danone Group stepped back from being
the club’s biggest sponsor when Franck Riboud decided to leave from his CEO
position at the club. The whole season was unsurprisingly a big fight for the
club, and if we have a look at the final standings and would state that ’a 14th
place isn’t that bad’, we need to take into consideration that the club was on
the 17th place for a long time, until the 38th, last matchday when they
overtook 3 of their rivals with a win.
The next season turned out to be the last Ligue 1
season of Les Roses, but it’s something they could feel really unlucky about.
I’m not talking about the 5 points gap which separated them from survivors
Toulouse, more like the league system. This year (or we should say last season
because this time things didn’t work out as wanted because of the pandemic) the
last two teams get relegated and the 18th team had to play an extra tie against
the winner of the Ligue 2 playoff between teams ranked 3-5. But five years ago
there was a different system, and all three clubs at the back went straight
into Ligue 2. It’s biggest winners five years ago were Angers who still enjoy
Ligue 1 football and already got used to it in the last years, and became a
solid mid-table side in one of the top 5 European leagues. Think it’s needless
to say, of course, Evian was the one who was on the wrong side of it. They
finished in the respectable 18th position (quite respectable given the club’s
finances back then), but that wasn’t enough.
In May 2016, Evian set a record in France which they aren’t so proud of.
It will be a big spoiler of their season, but they became the only team to be a
victim of that (lack of playoffs) system in two consecutive years. And I don’t
have good news for those thinking about whether they finished in a 4th or 5th
place. That year, everyone knows that the end is near. And what must hurt for
every fan of them are two things: the first is that it was the last year of the
direct relegation structure, and the second is that this time the gap between
Evian and the Sochaux-Niort-Ajaccio trio above the line. I think it’s fair to
say the club was struggling – struggling for staying up thus fighting for their
lives. The club would have had to start the following season in the National if
they could. But they entered receivership meaning that even if they would
survive based on the points, they would get a penalty to help them getting
relegated. The club’s story there ends.
After the CFA ceased the club’s existence, the only
option was to recreate it, which was successfully did in December that year,
renaming the club to Thonon Evian Savoie FC. And the last mentionable thing
about the club is that they and USFC Evian Lugrin merged to form Thonon Évian
FC. They still play in the amateur regional divisions and even though they
achieved promotion last year, they are still a lot of divisions lower than they
were a few years ago. The people of the village are now just happy to have a
football club, while a couple of years ago they had one of the most exciting
teams in the top division. Maybe it was a breakdown in which the club wasn’t
responsible, because losing the CEO and the main sponsors at the worst time
without time to prepare is a thing that would cause big losses for many of the
world’s biggest club. Govou is retired, Wass is playing regularly in UCL and
LaLiga, as part of a decent Valencia team, Tié Bi has gone back to Thonon Evian
a year ago, Mensah is in the USA while Dja Djédjé is fighting against
relegation in Turkey. Players left to every corner of the world, and former
coach Casoni keeps roaming around the world since his departure from Evian.
Former players have now become famous in totally different parts of the world,
and that’s just exactly what Evian wanted long ago: to make his footprints in
the French football.