(FILES) This general view taken on May 19, 2022, shows a sign with a logo in front of the chateau of FC Girondins de Bordeaux at the club's training ground in Le Haillan, near Bordeaux, south-western France. (Photo by Philippe LOPEZ / AFP)
Bordeaux: Six-time French champions stepped closer to extinction on Friday when a Paris court upheld the decision to bar them from playing in the fourth tier in the coming season.
They have instead been relegated to the sixth tier.
The Paris administrative court, the last possible legal avenue for Bordeaux, rejected the arguments of "new financial viability" put forward at Thursday's hearing by the lawyers for the new owner of the over-indebted club, which was bought at the end of July by the Sparta Capital fund.
Last week, the French National Olympic and Sports Committee (CNOSF) also rejected their appeal against exclusion from the national leagues.
Bordeaux were sanctioned for failing to provide the roughly ten million euros ($11.6 million) needed for the 2025-2026 financial year as well as 2026-2027 and meet debt payments.
The club now face the prospect of court-ordered liquidation if their new owners pull out.
"If it remains in this division (sixth tier), that would lead to the end of the takeover project and therefore its liquidation," warned Sparta Capital's lawyers in an email sent to the press on Thursday.
Bordeaux are one of France's most celebrated clubs.
Current France coach Zinedine Zidane made his name there and was joined in the 1998 World Cup-winning squad by academy products Bixente Lizarazu and Christophe Dugarry.
A decade earlier Alain Giresse and Jean Tigana were part of a celebrated France midfield that won the European championships in 1984.
However, they were relegated to Ligue 2 in 2022 and then placed in judicial restructuring in 2024, which caused them to relinquish their professional status and their highly-rated academy.
