Whoever watches football these days won’t argue that the prices of transfers are way too big (not to mention the players’ wages), but the end is not in sight. Every year, the June transfer window surpasses the last one in terms of money spend and this was the case in 2026 too. But there is one team which is in such a financial mess, that managed to end the transfer window without a single incoming! And we are not talking about some low-league club from some small European country, we are talking about a French giant – Olympique Marseille.“I didn't imagine that we would sign nobody"The famous club has been left in financial ruins since the departure of president Pablo Longoria and sporting director Medhi Benatia and new president Stephane Richard had to face criticism from the fans, even though he took the position just a few months ago. When the financial books were open, it was clear that the club has way overpaid their footballers and gave them unreasonable salaries. So, DNCG (French football's financial watchdog) imposed heavy sanctions on the club, which resulted in a situation where they were not able to sign a single player during the transfer window! What is worse, even if the transfer window continued, Marseille wouldn’t be able to buy players."The restrictions imposed on us by the DNCG are so drastic that we would have had to sell almost the entire squad before we could even begin to recruit. We cannot recruit a player without the DNCG's agreement. All this happened because many things have been done in recent years. Too much volume, salaries that are too high, gigantic salaries… There was a real problem" admitted Richard.Is anyone staying in Marseille?From June to September, many first team players left the city: Mason, Facundo Medina, Quinten Timber, Geronimo Rulli, Hamed Traore, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Leonardo Balerdi, Bilal Nadir and even that’s wasn’t enough in terms of lowering the wage bill."We haven't reached our objectives if we're thinking in terms of the 2026-2027 season's wage bill. We're not there yet, but we did our best given the market. The financial situation was catastrophic when he arrived. I look at the payroll. It must be remembered that between last season's payroll and today's, we are looking at a reduction of 30 to 35%. It's gigantic, unprecedented in the history of the club" said Richard.##NAJAVA_MECA_9930179##
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