Zinedine Zidane gets involved in a new sporting project. This Tuesday, L’Équipe announced that the French football icon had become a shareholder in Union Foot de Touraine, a club which currently plays in National 3, the fifth national level. A project in which he supports Basile Riboud, the son of his friend Franck Riboud, former CEO of Danone, with whom he had already invested a little money in Évian Thonon Gaillard in 2009.
The sum would be small – 10,000 euros – but the symbol is beautiful. Especially since the former number 10 of the French team is accompanied by several renowned personalities such as Sébastien Bazin, the CEO of the Accor group and former boss of PSG, Christophe Chenut, the former president of the Reims club, Frédéric Giscard d’Estaing, grandson of the former President of the Republic, or Olivier Pickeu, the manager of UF Touraine.
The club, born in 2009, is now the standard bearer of local football since the final liquidation of Tours FC in January 2025. While Joué-lès-Tours also disappeared, Basile Riboud decided to create a new structure on the basis of an existing club: FC de l’Ouest Tourangeau. The UF de Touraine was then born, with the objective of quickly offering a professional club to the region.
The consortium of personalities mentioned should allow the National 3 team to attract different investors to carry out this project. After Zinedine Zidane’s investment in Évian Thonon Gaillard, alongside Bixente Lizarazu and Michel Denisot, the Haute-Savoie club managed to access Ligue 1. In 2015, the three men sold their shares.
