Lyon picks up where the Mighty Ducks left off

By: Sam | February 9th, 2007

Assuming you all know your 90’s pro hockey history, you know that the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim were that team owned by Disney and named after a Disney kiddie sports movie. This year, they dropped the “mighty” part and became the Anaheim Ducks, a decision every person in the world applauds them for.

Olympique Lyonnais, who no, will not become Les puissants lions de Lyon , as you may have heard, started selling their shares on the stock market today. Now, I’m not going to start ranting like I did previously when this subject came up, but I’ll tell you what the fellas are up to.

First of all, they can only hope that their winless streak will finally end, because quite simply, it seems they chose a bad time to invest publicly.

But as for their projects for the future, here’s what they have disclosed.

-A new stadium, neighbouring 60,000 seats. (Great!)
-A better reputation in Europe. (Of course!)
-A shopping complex in the same lot as the stadium. (Um, sure!)
-They’re calling it “OL LAND”. (Okay, what?)
-Seriously. (Come on.)

OL Land? Laurie, even you can’t agree with that. Otherwise, their shares are starting at 24 euros apiece. I’ll be Stock Market Sam for the next few weeks and I’ll tell you what the down-low is on their public debut.

Qu’en pensez-vous?

Category: France Ligue 1, Lyon (OL), Team News, UEFA Champions League

Tags: France Ligue 1, Jean-Michel Aulas, Lyon (OL), Mighty Ducks of Anaheim, Public investment, Stade Gerland, Stock Market, Team News, UEFA Champions League

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• Laurie |  February 9th, 2007 at 9:25 pm

  
  
  

  “Laurie, even you…”? Since when did I become the defender of everything crassly commercial? I think this kind of thing is inevitable, and I don’t necessarily think going public (selling stock) is a bad thing because it helps a team compete internationally, but…

  OL Land? Very few things I read on the computer literally make me Laugh Out Loud. This was an exception.

  Tell me though. Is “OL Lnd” In English, or did you translate from French? Please tell me it’s at least in tasteful French.

  Posted from United States

  

• Inara |  February 10th, 2007 at 12:46 am

  
  
  

  Floating a club can be good or bad. In cases like Man United and Chelsea, stock options were bad, but clubs like Juventus and Lazio are doing quite well. And Aulas knows what he’s doing when it comes to money.

  I agree that football is being too closely tied with money, but it’s one of the situations where if you don’t jump on the bandwagon, you won’t be able to stay competitive. Part of Lyon’s problem is that they can’t match salaries and bids, so they lose their best players every year. If Aulas wants to be one the “big” clubs, he needs money. Despite Lyon being the 11th richest club in the world, it doesn’t mean anything when you realize that the huge gap between the tenth and eleventh spot.

  So…I’ll be happy with Lyon floats and still plays attractive football.

  Posted from United States

  

• Sam |  February 10th, 2007 at 1:01 am

  
  
  

  OL Land is what I read on the website. The “even you” bit was because you seem to be not only team mom but team lawyer for everything Lyon. Sorry if suggesting that you could almost not hate such a name offended you.

  Posted from Canada

  

• Laurie |  February 11th, 2007 at 1:26 pm

  
  
  

  No offense taken, and all will be forgiven if you find me a video of Fred’s latest goal for Lyon.

  Posted from United States

  

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