Following the presentation of Melvin Bard and Marcin Bulka, Jean-Pierre Rivère (OGC Nice President) and Julien Fournier (Director of Football) discussed various topics relating to Le Gym.

Jean-Pierre Rivère: "Reform in order to quickly make L1 more attractive"

On the transfer window
Of course it's different. We have just been through two unprecedented situations: on one hand the pandemic, and on the other, the TV rights. That means that we realise that lots of clubs have not been active during the transfer window, because they are unable to do so. They need to sell first before they can buy. That's why the quality of our shareholders is very important, because we were able to buy before selling. We may have some additional sales to make, even though there have already been some. French football finds itself in difficulty. Clubs that are used to being active have struggled to be active and for the moment, haven't strengthened. It's a very strange market this year, it's not easy. That's why the work done by Julien (Fournier) and all of the scouting network has been done with real quality, because it hasn't been easy.

The return of fans to the Allianz Riviera
Given that it had become something that we were used to, we said to ourselves that it's normal. It's when it suddenly stopped that we saw that it is fantastic to have a stadium filled with people. It's been 18 months that we have been living with a football that we had never seen before… Playing behind closed doors, it's terrible. It's been a long and difficult period. Getting back to the stadium with fans in it against Reims was a huge source of joy. We got back those feelings that we had lost and had almost forgotten.

Messi to Paris
In terms of what is to come in the future, it's clear that the arrival of Lionel Messi, if it does indeed happen, will be excellent news for French football. We have had, especially in recent months, a lot of criticism around the quality of our league. We have a project to reform our league to make it more and more attractive. I hope that we will get there quickly. And you can't forget that the TV rights deals will be put back out onto the market in the next 18 months/two years, and that L1 will shine, especially on an international level, where we are currently weak in terms of TV rights. The arrival of a player of his level, it's an incredible moment.

Julien Fournier: "Bring competition throughout"

The building of the squad
What we have tried to do as we build this squad is to bring competition throughout, even though there are statuses. Today we are talking about goalkeepers, it's good to provide competition for Walter, who is our number one goalkeeper. Marcin brings that competition. In midfield, there is also competition. We think that there is competition up-front too, but if we can add a little more in attack, we will try to do so…

Bard, another young Lyonnais who joins Le Gym…
I respect Lyon a lot for their ability to bring through players of the highest level. It's something that we, until now, haven't been able to do. We have brought through good players. There's one who is coming through, it's Evann (Guessand). He has everything to be a "Lyonnais". Lyon have been working very well for several years. At our level, we try to take advantage of that. But our job, however, is to no longer buy players like Melvin Bard, Alassane Plea, Amine Gouiri, Myziane Maolida, but to bring them through ourselves. That's our ambition and what we are currently lacking.

On the departure of Yoan Cardinale
I don't really want to enter into making comparisons. Yoan had his own qualities. He was a child of the Club, he will always be a child of the Club. He was someone who almost had a vice-captain role in the dressing room. The adventure didn't continue. He knows exactly why. Our objective is to always improve the team. Choosing Marcin was quite natural because we had already tried to bring him here a year ago.

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