"It has been a long road back for Le Mans FC since they last featured in Ligue 1 in 2010. Bankruptcy in 2013 meant they dropped to the sixth tier of French football. Last summer, the club returned to Ligue 2 while also welcoming new owners in the form of OutField. The Brazilian investors brought Novak Djokovic, Felipe Massa and Kevin Magnussen with them. Real Madrid and Belgium goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois would later join the project."
"“We wanted to bring really high-profile people that could help us leverage the project from a branding perspective,” OutField co-founder Pedro Oliveira tells BBC Sport. The link with Massa and Magnussen, both former Formula 1 drivers, is perhaps obvious given the town's motorsport heritage. The connection was also forged by a common contact, Georgios Frangulis, the founder and CEO of Oakberry, now an investor and operating partner at Le Mans."
"“[Frangulis] told us that Djokovic is crazy about football. We spoke to Djokovic, he liked the project, so he decided to invest,” said Oliveira. Courtois “really liked the whole idea of what [Le Mans] are building”, and so he reached out to the investors and joined the project back in February. “It is important that they know the world of sport because it is a world that has its own way of working,” Le Mans president Thierry Gomez said."
Le Mans FC has risen rapidly after financial collapse and a long absence from top-flight football. The club went bankrupt in 2013 and fell to the sixth tier, then returned to Ligue 2 last summer. New owners, OutField, brought Brazilian investors and high-profile athletes including Novak Djokovic, Felipe Massa, Kevin Magnussen, and later Thibaut Courtois. The ownership group aimed to strengthen the project’s branding and leverage the athletes’ global sports presence. Connections were built through shared contacts and existing investments, including links involving Oakberry’s founder Georgios Frangulis and his relationships to Massa, Magnussen, and Sabalenka. Club leadership emphasized that investors familiar with sport understand how it operates.
Read at www.bbc.com
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