Six-time Ligue 1 champion Bordeaux set to play in sixth division of French football

Bordeaux was forced to reliquinsh its professional status in 2024. | Photo Credit: REUTERS

Six-time French champion Bordeaux, which was sanctioned in the summer for financial irregularities, will play the current season in the sixth tier of French football, the Nouvelle-Aquitaine league confirmed on Thursday.

Bordeaux was sanctioned for failing to provide the roughly 10 million euros needed for the 2025-2026 financial year as well as 2026-2027 and meet debt payments.

Once one of France’s leading football clubs and the team where the country’s new head coach Zinedine Zidane made his name, Bordeaux was sold last month for a symbolic one euro to US-based investment group Park Bench who agreed to take on the remaining debt.

Two days after appearing before the oversight commission of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine league, which approved its recovery budget and issued “a positive opinion on their possible participation in Regional 1,” the club was unanimously approved to play in the top tier.

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“Rebuilding can now begin,” said Dominique Delport, the new president chosen by Park Bench, speaking to AFP.

The new owners are due in commercial court on October 20 to ratify the new continuation plan, which now runs over 12 years, with the debt halved from 26 to 13 million euros.

The team is largely amateur although they are permitted five players on professional contracts, one of which will go to former Ligue 1 striker Baptiste Guillaume.

The club has produced many big names of French football including academy products Bixente Lizarazu and Christophe Dugarry who both played alongside Zidane in the 1998 World Cup-winning team.

A decade earlier Alain Giresse and Jean Tigana were part of a celebrated France midfield that won the European championships in 1984.

However, it was relegated to Ligue 2 in 2022 and then placed in judicial restructuring in 2024, which caused it to relinquish its professional status and highly-rated academy.