By Paul Kennedy
Whether new owner Frank McCourt knows it or not, few soccer clubs have the history of French club Olympique de Marseille, or OM for short.
OM’sfirst great president, Marcel Leclerc, who made the club a French power in the early 1970s, quit in 1972 after being accused of embezzlement.
The notorious Bernard Tapiewent to jail for bribing players to throw a game against OM in l’Affaire VA-OM on the eve of its most famous victory, the 1993 victory over AC Milan that gave it the only UEFA Champions League titlefor a French club.
Businessman Robert Louis-Dreyfus, who tried to overthrow Alan Rothenberg as U.S. Soccer president in 1994 after the federation dropped Louis-Dreyfus’adidas for Nike and was after his death linked to the German soccer federation scandal involving the campaign to obtain the hosting rights to the 2006 World Cup, received a suspended three-year prisonsentence after being found guilty of involvement in a scandal linked to player transfers in the late 1990s.
McCourt, the former Los Angeles Dodgers owner, purchased OM from Louis-Dreyfus’widow Margarita on Monday, ending a long wait to find a successor.
L’Equipe reported on Monday that McCourt is ready to invest upward of $200 million in Marseille, and his purchasewas hailed a coup for the club that, despite its rabid support that includes a supporters group named — get this — Les Dodgers, lives in the shadow of Paris St. Germain and Lyon, the two corporategiants of French soccer.
But as the Los Angeles Times’ Chuck Schilken
“Mr. McCourt’s leadership helped guide the team to competitive success which returned the team to its rightful place among baseball’s elite organizations, along withtremendous economic success following years of financial challenges under its previous ownership.”
In 2011, ESPN’s Sweet Spot blog
The worst? Red Sox owner Harry Frazee (1916-1923), who sold Babe Ruthto the New York Yankees.
Unlike Freeze, it was McCourt’s good fortune that he lives in the television age as he was able to sell the Dodgers to a group headed by Magic Johnson, for$2 billion. McCourt bought the Dodgers from Fox for $430 million in 2004.
Very droll, Paul.
I doubt the supporters at Marseille have any idea what they are getting themselves into. They will learn soon enough and McCourt will also quickly learn that their supporters are a tad different than your average Dodger fan. This will be, if nothing else, a combination of sad and fun to watch.