Team News: Lyon boss John Tuctor once borrowed about 425 million euros to acquire the club

According to French media "The Team", Lyon boss John Tuctor once borrowed about 425 million euros to acquire the Lyon club, with an interest rate of between 11% and 16%, and must be repaid before December 2028.

The National Management Control Department (DNCG) penalty on Tuesday could prompt Lyon boss John Tuctor to retreat behind the scenes in the subsequent stages of the club's appeal.

DNCG made a ruling to downgrade Lyon to French Ligue 2 hours after listening to club management statements at the French League of Professional Football (LFP) headquarters in Paris on Tuesday night.

Lyon boss John Tuctor is also trapped in a center of media and financial storm that may sweep him away at any time. John Tuctor not only faces the now unscrupulous and universal public pressure, but also deals with more private but equally strong pressure from his common shareholders and lenders.

If Lyon's appeal fails and the downgrade is confirmed, most of the investments of shareholders such as John Tuctor will lose all their money, which seems unimaginable.

Realizing that he had lost his voice in France and in the face of relevant institutions, John Tuctor may have begun to retreat behind the scenes and look for people beside him to push it to the front stage in the following appeal stage to ease communication and successfully save the club.

At this stage, it is necessary to examine what seems to be the crux of the matter at the DNCG hearing Tuesday afternoon. In addition to an American pension fund injecting about 70 million euros in exchange for future player transfer income sharing (which regulators allegedly do not trust fully), Lyon also mentioned 40 million euros from Tuctor's sale of his stake in Crystal Palace Club (43%).

The deal was officially signed on Sunday and will bring nearly 210 million euros to John Tuctor. But he will not be able to enjoy the money because it is understood that all of his assets at the Crystal Palace Club have been pledged to lender ARES. John Tuctor once borrowed about 425 million euros from ARES to acquire the Lyon Club. The loan has an interest rate of between 11% and 16%, and the Floridian must repay it by December 2028.

Given the extremely fragile economic background over the past few seasons, management has disagreements with John Tuctor: John Tuctor wants to acquire Crystal Palace entirely, while they tend to sell their shares to repay part of the loan in advance. ARES won the tug-of-war, and it found a buyer that it recognized and priced to meet its requirements. The proceeds from the exchange will be in place after the Premier League review process ends at the end of September, so it will enter the vault of the US fund. Except for EUR 40 million, the funds will be used for the short-term operations of the Lyon Club.

DNCG requested proof of this commitment, and ARES provided it through a letter confirming its financial support to the Lyon Club a few hours after the meeting, but it failed to be adopted by the regulator. The agency pointed out that the club's budget plan for the 2025-26 season is based on the sale of a large number of players (total of about 100 million euros), which does not include the 42.5 million euros earned by Serky's transfer to Manchester City!

While waiting for the DNCG's reasons for the downgrade penalty, the Lyon Club needs to prepare to prove that it can receive at least an additional €70 million in cash before the Appeal Board hearing. If the fund comes from ARES, the fund may gain a key influence enough to exclude John Tuctor from the decision-making circle, but the situation has not yet developed that way.

In this case, it is not impossible for Laurent Pludom to return to the key position: Pludom has been in touch with ARES since he was fired a few weeks ago. Meanwhile, club shareholders are preparing funding plans to meet financial regulators’ demands. The agency hit the Lyon Club on Tuesday: Paradoxically, the daily cash collection pressures for suppliers and other creditors have been greatly alleviated in months with regular cash injections to gradually clear the bills. But the problem is obviously not over yet and will unfold at a higher level.