the boss of “l’Equipe”, Laurent Prud’homme, becomes that of Olympique Lyonnais – Libération

Managing director of the sports daily for almost three years, the 49-year-old announced his resignation on Friday November 17. The interim head of the “Team” will be ensured by Aurore Amaury, deputy general director of the parent company, the Amaury group.

Unexpected was the announcement, Friday morning, of the resignation of Laurent Prud’homme, general director of the Team for almost three years. Even more unexpected was the announcement of his destination, two hours later: the Olympique Lyonnais football club, where he will serve as general manager under the chairmanship of the majority shareholder, John Textor. The American businessman had been looking for several months for a boss for OL, particularly one capable of representing the club to the authorities. If his choice fell on Laurent Prud’homme, it was above all “because of his knowledge of the main players in French sport, starting with the leaders of the FFF and the LFP, writes the Team. He also has a history with Lyon, the city where part of his family is from and where he completed his studies. Within the Rhone club, he will replace both Thierry Sauvage, departing general manager, and Santiago Cucci, interim manager since this summer.

TV rights specialist

Arriving at the Team in January 2021 as deputy general manager, responsible for developing the video offering, Laurent Prud’homme will be named general manager two months later, after the departure of Jean-Louis Pelé. In three years, its strategy has mainly been to transform everyday life into a digital platform, by promoting its high value-added content, such as the long Explore formats, or its broadcasts of sports competitions. The manager had until then been mainly described as a specialist in the acquisition of sports TV rights. Before the Team, Laurent Prud’homme had spent his entire career at Eurosport, from 2001 to 2019, before moving to the next level, within the parent company, with the position of general manager of Discovery France. Under his leadership, the Team had also developed an audiovisual production company, 21 Production, a subsidiary ensuring the technical and audiovisual production of Ligue 1 and Ligue 2 for Amazon Prime Video. It is Aurore Amaury, president of the l’Equipe group and deputy director of the Amaury group, the daughter of Marie-Odile Amaury, president of the family group, who will act in the interim before the appointment of a new general director.

This is, in any case, the second surprising movement at the head of the Team in recent months. In June, it was the editorial director for eight years, Jérôme Cazadieu, who also made the same path from journalism to professional football by joining LFP Media, the commercial subsidiary of the Professional Football League. At the head of the editorial team, he was replaced by the team’s football editor-in-chief, Lionel Dangoumau.