Sale of Marseille a step closer to reality

AFP - 16 January 2007 20:49

Canadian businessmen Jack Kachkar, president of pharmaceutical firm Inyx, had made an offer of between 100 and 150 million euros to buy the shares of French first division soccer club Marseille´s major shareholder and former president Robert Louis-Dreyfus, seen here in 2006.

MARSEILLE, France (AFP) - The sale of French first division club Marseille came a step closer to reality when Canadian businessmen Jack Kachkar confirmed he had made an offer though did not reveal the amount.

Sources claimed 43-year-old Kachkar, president of pharmaceutical firm Inyx which employs more than 575 people in North America and Europe, had made an offer of between 100 and 150 million euros to buy the shares of major shareholder and former president Robert Louis-Dreyfus.

Kachkar said in a statement on Tuesday: "I intend to commit myself to the club completely and to work together with all the teams, players, officials and supporters. Together we will make Marseille a big European club again."

The statement added the sale should be completed in February.

Louis-Dreyfus arrived at Marseille in December 1996 and invested 200 million euros in the club without winning a single title and, according to an unnamed spokesman on his behalf, fixed the price of his shares at a minimum of 100 million euros.

Current Marseille club president Pape Diouf allayed fears that jobs would be lost, saying: "The next owner of Marseille must be able to have the financial muscle to heavily invest in the club. There could even be the launching of a five-year plan.

"The second condition is that the current personnel at the club will be retained."

Marseille are the only French club to have won the European Champions League when they beat AC Milan 1-0 in the 1993 final, but an ensuing match-fixing scandal that summer resulted in their relegation to the second division and they have since then not reached the same heights.