Jean-Pierre Rivère and Florent Ghisolfi took the opportunity presented by Morgan Sanson’s and Jérémie Boga’s introductory press conference to state OGC Nice’s aims for the 2023–24 season. “We’ll talk to the players about it while we wait for some new signings to arrive,” explained the club’s sporting director. “There’ll be seven European places in Ligue 1 this season. The aim is to get into Europe and to do so every season. We’ve had a slight budget reduction, but nonetheless, we really do have the resources to achieve something by working smartly. Beyond our aim, we’re going to focus on our resources, on what we’re going to do on a daily basis and on how we’re going to build our project.”

Club president Jean-Pierre Rivère also gave his thoughts on the “slight budget reduction”: “There’s one important thing: I’ve heard people criticising INEOS. If they hadn’t been there, what with COVID, Médiapro and everything that happened, I think that the club would have struggled immensely. We’re very happy to have them; they’re always there. For a few months, there was an extremely ambitious project in place. That project is no longer relevant. We know that INEOS will possibly acquire an English club, but this isn’t linked to that. It wouldn’t make any sense. We’ve embarked on a project that suits me – although it’s perhaps trickier for Florent – which is to start again from solid foundations. At the start of the transfer window, everyone was worried. We’ve done things calmly, and we’ve signed the players that we wanted to sign. I’m delighted to have INEOS; they’re great people who still stand alongside us today and who remain ambitious. We’ve got everything we need to do good work. Transfer windows are very difficult, but I now think that we’ve got the teams needed to get the job done. The aim is to compete in European football as regularly as possible. Which level of European football, we don’t know in advance. We’ll see what happens.”

 

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