OGC Nice club captain Dante says there has been a lack of clarity about the direction owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe wants the club to head in amid several fan boycotts.
The Ineos billionaire is rivalling Sheikh Jassim bin Hamad al-Thani in the takeover race at Manchester United with the process expected to shortly conclude. Ineos’ sports portfolio contains franchises within Formula One and cycling as well as football.
Sir Jim bought Nice in 2019 but after several top five Ligue 1 finishes in subsequent years, they are now languishing in ninth and will play no part in European competition next season, having also lost to Basel in the quarter-finals of the Europa Conference League last month.
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Club skipper Dante has spoken about the running of the club after a mass turnaround of players last summer saw several regulars leave while the likes of Kasper Schmeichel, Ross Barkley and Aaron Ramsey arrived.
When asked if the squad was let down by leaders, he told L’Equipe: “I think that at some point, you have to be clear about what you're saying. To hold a project, we may need to talk less about our objectives and work in silence to build an environment of competitors.
“Because the expectation is even greater and afterwards, people are frustrated. The best thing to do is to anticipate next season as soon as possible to get it off to a good start.
“Do you remember how many players reached the end of the transfer window last summer? Six left, six arrived. It's complicated in these conditions. Just don't make the same mistakes again.”
Dante added: “If someone wants my opinion, the earlier we organise ourselves the better it will be. If we want to aim higher, we have to anticipate things and put the values of the organisation in place.
“When the [former] coach (Lucien) Favre arrived, we said that in two years, we would be in the Champions League all the time. It doesn't work like that, Ligue 1 is very difficult.
“We changed everything last summer. There is a lack of clarity somewhere, I'm sorry to say that. To be more concrete, how many players have been regulars this season? The answer is simple. A competitive team is 12, 13 or 14 players at the top level.”
Many Nice fans are disgruntled with the season and two supporters groups announced a boycott of Sunday’s home goalless draw with Toulouse. Ultras Populaire Sud Nice announced they would not be attending the game, while North Side Nice said it would be also avoiding the trip to Montpellier this Saturday.
In a statement on its Facebook page, the latter group accused players of not trying during games and criticised them for apparently not going over to acknowledge supporters after the full-time whistle.
After Sunday’s draw with Toulouse, Nice manager Didier Dicard said of the fan boycott: “The players don’t deserve it.” Just over 20,000 supporters were present at the Allianz Riviera, which holds 36,000, against Toulouse.
This season’s average attendance for Nice home games is just north of 22,000. Similar protests took place when groups urged supporters not to buy season tickets ahead of the 2019/20 season in a bid to oust former owner Chien Lee.
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