The fall is dizzying for the Girondins de Bordeaux. Destroyed by the scandalous management of its owner Gérard Lopez, the Aquitaine club lost its professional status in July 2024 and, before its administrative demotion in National 2 (the French D4), was forced to close its training center. The FCGB football school was one of the brightest in France for decades and Yannick Stopyra maintained it alive for 12 years before the drama …
Stopyra made his return in 2012 to the Girondins, where he had played a single season (1988-1989). Vedotte scorer of Sochaux and Toulouse, he was international French from 1980 to 1988, for a balance sheet of 33 selections and 11 goals. If he missed the 1982 World Cup (the Seville nightmare against the FRG) then the 1984 Euro won by the Blues at the Parc des Princes, Stopyra was the attacker of the band to Michel Platini until 3rd place in the World 86 in Mexico. He scored two goals and was appointed to the typical team of the tournament.
Responsible for recruitment for the training center, Yannick Stopyra (now 64 years old) identified Jules Koundé and Aurélien Tchouameni in the Bordeaux region. The two current French internationals are the most beautiful flagships of modern FCGB and have also bailed out the club's coffers, weighed down by two owners with chaotic methods, King Street then Gérard Lopez.
Yannick STOPYRA drives Gérard LOPEZ
“It was complicated in relationships. Sportingly, we cannot work in Miami as we work in Bordeaux. We cannot work in Marseille as we work at PSG. There are mentalities that must be respected. Afterwards, there is a distance. But with the following management (under Gérard Lopez, editor's note)there was also a distance. To live, I assure you, it was very painful ”tells Stopyra in a given interview Webgirondins.com. The former tricolor international has never had any contact with Gérard Lopes and the sports director Admar Lopes never collaborated with him!
The center was closed was a real heartbreak. Yannick Stopyra and Patrick Battiston, the director of the training center (and another legend of the Blues), learned the news on social networks. “He met the managing director who did not even have the guts to come to the center to see us. We knew it by social networks. This is especially what hurts. They knew it was over and we were not aware. We saw children cry. We saw parents cry. There are some who have not found a school. So it was difficult “tells Stopyra a year later to
Webgirondins.com.
