Farewell to the builder of the best women’s team in history

He Women’s Football is emerging. The world attendance records of the public who registered the Camp Nou in recent times the FC Barcelona to the emerging team in Europe. The next one June 3, in Eindhoventhe azulgranas will fight to be proclaimed champions of Champions League for the second time in its history, to face the Wolfsburg german This will be the fourth final in which Barça has been. In 2020 he was crowned against Chelsea. In 2019 and in 2022, he collided with Olympique de Lyon in the final title game, the real bête noire culé, winning 4-1 in Budapest and 3-1 in Turin. OL, the most successful women’s football club in the world, since Monday no longer has an ‘alma mater’ in charge of its destinations. after thirty-six years, Jean Michel’s Classrooms He ceased to be the eternal president of OL. A pioneer is leaving, someone without whom it would be difficult to explain what is happening in women’s football today.

Reaching the top leadership of OL in 1987, this son of teachers and entrepreneurs specializing in software design, had a passion for taking the helm of the club from his land. He took office when he was 38 years old and left it when he turned 74. He took over the men’s team in the Second Division and climbed the ranks until he put OL in a referential position in French football and a very -dignity in Europe. It has become the hegemonic club of Ligue 1, linking between 2002 and 2008 seven championship titles. In Juninho Pernambuco of the club’s iconic crack and sponsoring the jump to the elite of a future Ballon d’Or as Karim Benzemais the main character of the remembered transactions in FC Barcelonaboth purchased (Sonny Anderson in 1999) and sold (Eric Abidal in 2007). In those four decades he spoke to five Barça presidents: Josep Lluñis Núñez, Joan Gaspart, Joan Laporta (in two stages), Sandro Rosell and Josep Maria Bartomeu.

His great international moment was when, thanks to a goal from Miralem Pjanic at the Santiago Bernabéu, they eliminated Real Madrid from the Champions League in 2010, losing in the semifinal against Bayern. However, none more so than her determined winning bid for women’s football, where she made the best of the list of winners of a club founded in 1899, three months before Barça.

Although she has a group of women under the name of FC Lyon since the 70s of the last century, Aulas understood the importance of giving it a real boost since 2004, with the acronym OL. After debuting in the Women’s Champions League in 2007, OL have been European champions eight times, in addition to adding two runner-ups and fifteen French leagues. IFFHS selected OL as the best women’s team in the world in 2012, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020. Historical players like Camille Abily,

Sonia Bompastor, Louisa Necib, Lotta Schelin, Eugénie Le Sommer, Amel Majri, Dzsenifer Marozsán, Ada Hegerberg and Wendie Renard They mark an era that defends their colors. Aulas encouraged the growth of women’s soccer before it even appeared. “The more we see women’s football, the more people will know how big a sport it is,” he told L’Equipe. “This requires, first of all, a change of mentality within the club… a big philosophical and cultural change because the foundations of the club, rooted in the world of football, are too unprepared and calm for to a modern women’s team. to come out. , committed and successful. It’s an exclusively male club that’s not ready for that,” she explained to The Athletic.

On June 21, 2022, john textor, head of Eagle Football Holdings LLC, announced with Aulas the acquisition of the club. It took six months before the sale became official. It was agreed to leave the emblematic president another three years in charge of the club, but tensions led to Aulas’ departure on Monday. Of course, Aulas is considered the best president in the history of French football by France Football, in 2021, and with the Legion of honor, in 2016.