By David Owen
August 18 – Michel Platini once told me that he would be annoyed if one day, when asked how their club had got on, football fans replied that the shares had gone up, rather than giving the result of a match.
So the former UEFA President may have mixed feelings about how the stock market has reacted to French club Olympique Lyonnais’s surprise 3-1 win over Manchester City in the Champions League on Saturday.
As I write, the shares of the club, who now face German giants Bayern Munich in the semi-finals of Europe’s premier club competition on Wednesday, were last reported trading at €2.30
According to the Financial Times, this is 12.2% above the 52-week low of €2.05 set just over a week ago on August 10, and gives Lyon a market capitalisation approaching the €130 million mark.
The market appears, logically enough, to be taking account of the extra prize money the club is entitled to in the wake of Saturday’s upset. The respected analyst who operates under the nom de plume Swiss Ramble recently tweeted that Lyon’s Champions League revenue was now expected to be around €89 million, without taking account of potential broadcaster rebates. This is up from €77million before the quarter-final.
Having finished 7th, outside the European placings, when Ligue 1 was declared over for the season because of the coronavirus pandemic, Lyon could really do with winning the Champions League, for financial as much as footballing reasons.
The shares remain well below pre-Covid levels, with the 52-week high standing at €3.40.
A Lyon victory in this season’s competition continues to be seen as highly unlikely, however. Bookmakers are quoting Lyon universally as the rank outsiders of the four survivors at odds of between 14 and 25/1. Bayern, their next opponents, are now odds-on favourites to lift the trophy after their stunning quarter-final demolition of Barcelona.
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