PARIS (AP) — France’s richest family, the Arnaults of luxury empire LVMH, announced the planned purchase of second-division soccer club Paris FC on Thursday and ambitions to establish it in the top flight.
It’s a major shakeup for soccer in France, putting vast wealth behind a potential challenger in the French capital to the dominant Ligue 1 team of recent years, Qatar-funded Paris Saint-Germain.
A statement from the Arnault family's holding company, Agache, said it will become the club's majority shareholder. Energy drink giant Red Bull will come aboard with a minority stake.
The statement didn’t give a monetary figure for the deal, which remains subject to completing legal and other paperwork. But the billionaire family's company intends to provide the club "with the necessary resources” and wants “to permanently establish the men’s and women’s teams among the elite of French football and within the hearts of the Parisians.”
More broadly, the takeover of the club with a distinctive blue-and-white Eiffel Tower logo could help the French capital build on the sporting momentum of the Paris Olympics and put an end to its place as something of an oddball in the European soccer landscape.
Despite being a powerhouse of fashion, finance, luxury and entertainment, Paris trails London, Madrid and other cities by having just one top-flight soccer team: The hegemonic PSG.
The former club of superstar Kylian Mbappé is a 12-time champion of Ligue 1, with 10 of those titles in France’s top league coming after gas-rich Qatar began injecting its wealth into the club it purchased in 2011.
London, by contrast, has seven Premier League clubs this season. Madrid and its suburbs have five clubs in La Liga. Rome has two, sharing Stadio Olimpico.
The situation is even more curious given the Paris region's long and proven record as one of Europe's most fertile grounds for soccer talent, with Mbappé, Thierry Henry, N’Golo Kante, Paul Pogba and many other French stars having emerged from the capital's housing projects and feeder clubs.
Paris FC's takeover by a family with deep pockets could, in time, possibly offer future French stars more options to stay home, rather than move to the continent's other more successful leagues. The Arnault family is expected to initially take a 55% stake and Red Bull around 15%, with current owner Pierre Ferracci keeping the rest for now. Ferracci stays on a club president.
“The history and the evolution of Paris FC embodies a whole other aspect to football in the capital. With the arrival of Agache as the club’s majority shareholder, the club will take on a new dimension with new goals and criteria for success,” the family company's statement said.
Created in 1969, Paris FC's men's team has yet to achieve any significant success. But it currently tops the second-division standings.
The women's team already plays in the top-tier Première League.
Red Bull will mainly act as a sporting adviser, “whether it be reinforcing the detection of young talent capable of joining the training center or targeting the best players.”
Red Bull this month announced former Liverpool coach Jürgen Klopp will become its head of global soccer from January, overseeing its international network of clubs.
Agache, meanwhile, will bring “its entrepreneurial vision and expertise in economic development and brand influence over the long term."
LVMH boss Bernard Arnault is toward the very top of Forbes’ list of the world’s richest people, with an estimated wealth topping $150 billion.
His son Antoine Arnault, who'll be the family representative on the Paris FC board, said, “Football has long been a great passion for us.
“We are very hopeful that, gradually, we will together write a new and exceptional chapter in French football history, without setting any specific objectives at this stage."
AP soccer: https://apnews.com/apf-soccer
The Paris FC soccer club banner is seen outside the Charlety stadium in Paris, France, Thursday, Oct.17, 2024. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)
The Paris FC soccer club banner is seen outside the Charlety stadium in Paris, France, Thursday, Oct.17, 2024. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)
The Paris FC soccer club banner is seen outside the Charlety stadium in Paris, France, Thursday, Oct.17, 2024. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)
The Paris FC soccer club banner is seen outside the Charlety stadium in Paris, France, Thursday, Oct.17, 2024. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)
HOUSTON (AP) — A Texas man who could be the first person in the U.S. executed for a murder conviction tied to a diagnosis of shaken baby syndrome is facing a lethal injection Thursday evening amid assertions by his attorneys and a diverse coalition of supporters who say he's innocent and was convicted on faulty scientific evidence.
Robert Roberson waited to hear whether his execution might be stopped by either Texas Gov. Greg Abbott or the U.S. Supreme Court — his last two avenues for a stay. He is scheduled to receive a lethal injection at the state penitentiary in Huntsville. A Texas House committee is also trying to delay the execution by taking the extraordinary step of issuing a subpoena for Roberson to testify at a hearing next week about his case.
Roberson, 57, was condemned for the 2002 killing of his 2-year-old daughter, Nikki Curtis, in the East Texas city of Palestine. Roberson has long proclaimed his innocence, backed by some notable Republican lawmakers, Texas GOP megadonor and conservative activist Doug Deason and the lead detective on the case. Roberson's lawyers and some medical experts say his daughter died not from abuse but from complications related to pneumonia.
“He’s an innocent man and we’re very close to killing him for something he did not do,” said Brian Wharton, the lead detective with Palestine police who investigated Curtis’ death.
Roberson’s lawyers waited to see if Abbott would grant Roberson a one-time 30-day reprieve. It’s the only action Abbott can take in the case as the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles on Wednesday denied Roberson’s clemency petition.
The board voted unanimously, 6-0, to not recommend that Roberson’s death sentence be commuted to life in prison or that his execution be delayed. All members of the board are appointed by the governor. The parole board has recommended clemency in a death row case only six times since the state resumed executions in 1982.
In his nearly 10 years as governor, Abbott has halted only one imminent execution, in 2018 when he spared the life of Thomas Whitaker, whose father had asked that his son not be put to death. The father had survived a shooting Whitaker had masterminded.
“We pray that Governor Abbott does everything in his power to prevent the tragic, irreversible mistake of executing an innocent man,” Gretchen Sween, one of Roberson’s attorneys, said in a statement.
A spokesperson for Abbott did not immediately reply to an email seeking comment.
Roberson’s lawyers also have a stay request pending before the Supreme Court. The nation's highest court has rarely granted 11th-hour reprieves to people on death row.
The Texas House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee on Wednesday held an all-day meeting on Roberson's case. In a surprise move at the end of the hearing, the committee issued a subpoena for Roberson to testify next week. It was not immediately known if the committee's request could delay Thursday's execution.
The Texas Department of Criminal Justice, or TDCJ, is aware of the subpoena and is working with the Texas Attorney General's Office on next steps, said Amanda Hernandez, a TDCJ spokesperson.
During its meeting in Austin, the committee heard testimony about Roberson’s case and whether a 2013 law created to allow people in prison to challenge their convictions based on new scientific evidence was ignored in Roberson’s case.
Anderson County District Attorney Allyson Mitchell, whose office prosecuted Roberson, told the committee a court hearing was held in 2022 in which Roberson’s attorneys presented their new evidence to a judge, who rejected their claims. Mitchell said the prosecution’s case showed Curtis had been abused by her father.
“Based on the totality of the evidence, a murder took place here. Mr. Roberson took the life of his almost 3-year-old daughter,” Mitchell said.
Most of the members of the committee are part of a bipartisan group of more than 80 state lawmakers, including at least 30 Republicans, who had asked the parole board and Abbott to stop the execution.
Roberson’s scheduled execution has renewed debate over shaken baby syndrome, known in the medical community as abusive head trauma.
His lawyers as well as the Texas lawmakers, medical experts and others, including bestselling author John Grisham, say his conviction was based on faulty and now outdated scientific evidence. The diagnosis refers to a serious brain injury caused when a child’s head is hurt through shaking or some other violent impact, like being slammed against a wall or thrown on the floor.
Roberson’s supporters don’t deny head and other injuries from child abuse are real. But they say doctors misdiagnosed Curtis’ injuries as being related to shaken baby syndrome and that new evidence has shown the girl died from complications related to severe pneumonia.
Roberson’s attorneys say he was wrongly arrested and later convicted after taking his daughter to a hospital. They say she had fallen out of bed in Roberson’s home after being seriously ill for a week.
Roberson’s lawyers have also suggested his autism, which was undiagnosed at the time of his daughter’s death, was used against him as authorities became suspicious of him because of his lack of emotion over what had happened to her. Autism affects how people communicate and interact with others.
The American Academy of Pediatrics, other medical organizations and prosecutors say the diagnosis of shaken baby syndrome is valid and that doctors look at all possible things, including any illnesses, when determining if injuries were attributable to it.
Roberson’s scheduled execution would come less than a month after Missouri put to death Marcellus Williams amid lingering questions about his guilt and whether his death sentence should have instead been commuted to life in prison. Williams was convicted in the 1998 killing of Lisha Gayle, a social worker and former St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter.
Roberson's execution is scheduled to take place on the same day Alabama is set to execute Derrick Dearman, condemned for killing five people with an ax and gun during a 2016 drug-fueled rampage.
Follow Juan A. Lozano on X at https://x.com/juanlozano70.
Elizabeth Ramirez, center, Casandra Rivera, center right, and Anna Vasquez, second from right, of the "San Antonio 4" group, deliver boxes with petitions in the Texas State capitol for Texas Gov. Greg Abbott seeking the pardoning of Robert Roberson's execution, Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2024, in Austin, Texas. Roberson, 57, is scheduled to receive a lethal injection on Oct. 17, for the 2002 killing of his 2-year-old daughter, Nikki Curtis, in the East Texas city of Palestine. Roberson has long proclaimed his innocence. (AP Photo/Nadia Lathan)
Casandra Rivera, left, Anna Vasquez, second from left, and Elizabeth Ramirez, center, of the "San Antonio 4" group, hold boxes with petitions being delivered in the Texas State capitol for Texas Gov. Greg Abbott seeking the pardoning of Robert Roberson's execution, Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2024 in Austin, Texas. Roberson, 57, is scheduled to receive a lethal injection on Oct. 17, for the 2002 killing of his 2-year-old daughter, Nikki Curtis, in the East Texas city of Palestine. Roberson has long proclaimed his innocence. (AP Photo/Nadia Lathan)
Texas man set to be first in US executed over shaken baby syndrome makes last appeals
FILE - Texas lawmakers meet with Robert Roberson at a prison in Livingston, Texas, Sept. 27, 2024. (Criminal Justice Reform Caucus via AP, File)
Texas man set to be first in US executed over shaken baby syndrome makes last appeals
