‘Unwanted from day one’: Dijon Women fight on despite feeling abandoned by club

Dijon are punching above their weight for yet another season and are fifth in the French top flight going into the final straight. This might be it though. Despite another fine campaign, they could lose their professional status in a few months’ time. The financial crisis at the club has hit the women’s side hardest. The team have been up for sale since the arrival of the new president a year and a half ago, but no buyer has been found.

On 9 April the players at Dijon’s women’s side published a statement saying they felt “unwanted from day one”, denouncing what they call the abandonment of the women’s section by the club. Four days earlier, Dijon had announced plans to scale back their ambitions for the women’s side owing to a lack of resources, going as far as to consider jettisoning the professional team next season. “In the absence of a buyer, no guarantees can be given regarding the level of competition for the teams next season,” the club said, also casting doubt on the future of the women’s academy created in 2024.

The players criticise what they describe as a “confused and careless” management of the team, who have been competing in the top division for eight consecutive years and are coming off a historic season last year, having finished fourth and reached the league title playoffs against Lyon. This season, again, they are thriving on the pitch.

The club’s president, Pierre-Henri Deballon, is a particular target for the players’ criticism. The squad are angry with what they say is an “absent leadership” whose “indifference” is causing the women’s section to disappear. “The decent thing would have been to pass it on to save what matters,” they insist, holding the board responsible for the failed sale of the women’s team by “demanding thousands, even millions” for “a section deemed unprofitable”.

Deballon, a Dijon-based entrepreneur and co-founder of the digital ticketing firm Weezevent, took over in July 2024. At the moment, the club are still in talks with an investor whose identity has not been disclosed after negotiations with Sphera Partners – an American investment firm which has tried to buy Bordeaux’s women’s team in the past – collapsed when Sphera failed to secure the necessary funds. The board would now be willing to let the women’s section go for nothing at all.

The president acknowledges he can no longer meet the financial demands of both professional teams and is focusing on the men’s side, who play in France’s third division, non-professional, on the grounds that men’s football generates more revenue. “We cannot invest the same energy in men’s and women’s football. That’s unrealistic,” he told Ecofoot in October.

“We’re already surprised he funded the women’s section for two years,” says a source at the club, who never sensed any real interest from the new president in the women’s team. “He’s a businessman: if it doesn’t make money, it goes.”

Dijon’s women’s team are running a deficit of around €5m (£4.4m) for the 2025-26 season. According to the board, the women’s section alone accounts for €1.5m in losses – a figure disputed by the players and the financial officer of the women’s side, claiming it is more like €600,000.