16 October 2023 , 16:08
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Sir Jim Ratcliffe's Nice have lowered their aims since INEOS took over in August 2019 - and the Eaglets are now flying higher in the table.
The Monaco-based billionaire paid €100million in the biggest investment in French football history - more than the €79m paid by Qatar for PSG in 2011. The new owners immediately declared they wanted Champions League football within "three to five years" and "to challenge PSG".
But Patrick Vieira, who was already in place as head coach, was sacked in December 2020 after five consecutive defeats. French-speaking Dave Brailsford took a hands-on role through his position as director of sport INEOS the following year and started a restructuring of the club seeking his famous marginal gains.
Yet a disastrous summer transfer market in 2022 saw the arrival of ex-Premier League stars Aaron Ramsey, Ross Barkley, Kasper Schmeichel, Nicolas Pepe and Morgan Schneiderlin - and the unbalanced team struggle to finish ninth.
Nice were then linked with a move for former Brighton and Chelsea coach Graham Potter as Brailsford earned comparisons with Sir Clive Woodward’s foray into football with Southampton. Since then, Florent Ghisolfi has been appointed sporting director while former Juventus and PSG director Jean-Claude Blanc is now the CEO of INEOS Sport - and the project has changed amid Financial Fair Play and footballing realities.
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"After that transfer fiasco in 2022, INEOS started to realise - including Brailsford, who had been heavily involved in the club's running.' - that you need to delegate to people who actually understand football,” said Nice-based Luke Entwistle, the editor-in-chief ofGet French Football News.
“He had never really done that - he had been very present and there had been a time when he was living in a caravan at Nice training centre. It has been a change that has been coming.”
With Brailsford taking a step back, INEOS now wants Nice to be self-sufficient and the club has appointed Italian Francesco Farioli, 34, to play a more open, attacking style like Roberto De Zerbi. Les Aiglons (the Eaglets) are the only unbeaten team in Ligue 1 in second place behind only local rivals Monaco - and ahead of PSG.
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But club president Jean-Pierre Rivere stated in July: "The very ambitious project is no longer on the agenda. The ambition is no longer to challenge PSG; the ambition is Europe."
Now there is more of an effort to forge closer links with the other clubs in the INEOS group with Senegalese winger Aliou Balde moving from Lausanne to Nice this summer. One report in France this weekend claimed INEOS were open to selling Nice with Saudi Arabian investors, who have been looking at Marseille, targeted.
But L'Equipe reported on Monday that the Manchester United investment will not alter Ratcliffe’s involvement with the Cote d'Azur club - and they will not become a satellite or feeder club.
Nice are founding members of Ligue 1 and won the title four times in the 1950s but have no silverware since the 1997 Coupe de France. And the fan base has been patient despite the broken promises in a French top flight lacking big investors.
Former Nice defender Jose Cobos claimed: "When a lot of clubs have had to sell players, Nice have spent a lot and maintained the competitiveness of the teams. They have still spent €40m in the summer window. A lot of clubs would like such an owner."