How To Run A Succesful Club

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Lyon offers recipe for football success If you had to locate the European dream anywhere, it would be in Lyon. On a warm winter’s afternoon recently, sitting outside in the 18th-century Place Bellecour where the buildings are as pretty as the women, I thought: nice. Here’s a wealthy town where you can have a good job, live in a big house near the mountains and get some sun. Better yet, France’s gastronomic capital also hosts a footballing miracle.Next Wednesday, Olympique Lyon must beat Rangers in Glasgow to survive in this year’s Champions League. Jean-Michel Aulas, Lyon’s president, told me they will win Europe’s biggest prize some day. But already, this once nondescript club has achieved what every nondescript club dreams of. Lyon have won six consecutive French league titles, a feat unmatched by any other club in any of Europe’s five biggest national leagues. This season they will win their seventh. Emmanuel Hembert, a Lyon exile who heads the sports consulting practice at A.T. Kearney in London, says: “I use them as an example all the time.” To save clubs Kearney’s consulting fees, here are Lyon’s secrets● Exploit the inefficiencies of the transfer market. The main inefficiency is that the premiums paid for big-name players are too high: the big name might cost five times as much as a promising youngster, but he isn’t five times better. So Lyon happily sell stars for a good price. Aulas explains, over bottles of “OL” branded mineral water: “We will invest better than Chelsea, Arsenal or Real Madrid. We will make different strategic choices. For instance, we won’t try to have the best team on paper, or in terms of brand.“We buy young players with potential who are considered the best in their country, between 20 and 22 years old. Also, buying and selling is not an activity for improving the football performance. It’s a trading activity, in which we pursue gross margin. If an offer for a player is greatly above his market value, you must not keep him.”● Replace your best players before you sell them. This avoids a transitional period or panic purchase after the player leaves. Aulas says: “We will replace him six months or a year before. So when Michael Essien goes [to Chelsea for a fee of £24.4m], we already have players ready to replace him. Then when the opportunity for Tiago arises, for 25 per cent of the price of Essien, you take him.”● Transfers should be decided by people who are at the club for the long term, not by whoever happens to be the current coach. Lyon’s transfers are done by the troika of Aulas, the eternal technical director Bernard Lacombe, and the coach. Each new coach must work with the material he’s given. He can’t let someone else’s expensive signing rot on the bench, or hang on to an overvalued star for short-term reasons. Lyon’s method avoids waste. However, it is unusual, notes Aulas. “In England often the manager does transfers alone.”● Buy Brazilians. They are the best footballers. “Ten years ago,” says Aulas, “we sent one of our old players, Marcelo, to Brazil. He is an extraordinary man, because he was both an engineer and a professional footballer.” Marcelo sent Lyon the future internationals Edmilson, Juninho and Fred.● Then help the Brazilians adapt. Many Brazilians flop at European clubs because they are unhappy. But Lyon have staffers who help the Brazilians settle in apartments, learn French, cope with homesickness, etcetera. The former president of a rival club told me: “They don’t select players just for their quality but for their ability to adapt. I can’t see Lyon recruiting an Anelka or a Ronaldinho.” ● Give homegrown players the same opportunities as big signings. Aulas long refused to buy a big-name centre-forward, because he thinks the market overprices centre-forwards. Now Lyon’s homegrown teenager Karim Benzema plays the position and scores non-stop. Benzema is no exception: he’s one of three of Lyon’s homegrown forwards who have played for France this season.● Grow gradually. Avoid big debts: success in football is so uncertain that you may fail to repay them. When Aulas took over Lyon in 1987, they were in the second division. He says: “Each year we set as an objective to have progression. It’s like a cyclist: you can overtake the people just ahead of you.” Now Lyon’s objective is winning the Champions League. However, says Aulas, “it’s not urgent. We know it will happen. We don’t know when it will happen.” The new 60,000-seat stadium due in 2010 should help, but that too is to be financed with only modest debt.● Do all this in a rich pleasant town with no footballing tradition. The strong Lyonnais economy produces enough sponsors. Players enjoy living in Lyon, hardly a hardship posting. And because Lyon had never been French champions until 2002, fans are undemanding. They are relaxed when Aulas sells stars, or when the new team loses two straight matches. “We tried to abstract the factor time,” says Aulas. He couldn’t have done that at Real Madrid or Liverpool

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Lyon are an incredible team, arguably the most creative midfield in European football and a pacey attack full of technical ability. In Coupet they have an experienced goalkeeper. In Clerc, Cris, Squillaci and Grosso they have four defenders capped dozens of times by their national teams - France, Brazil and Italy respectively. In Juninho they have a man who scores or creates an opportunity which leads to a goal with 49% of his freekicks. In Kim Kallstrom they have a player with in my opinion the best passing distribution in the game after Andrea Pirlo. In Jeremy Toulalan they have a young defensive midfielder who is dubbed the "White Makelele" for obvious reasons. Then with the attacking options of Govou, Benzema, Fred, Baros and Ben Arfa, they have pace, ability and control.