Nice Faces Relegation Playoff After Chaos with Ultras
The final whistle had barely died when the anger finally spilled over.
Nice’s players, already trudging off after a goalless draw with relegated Metz, suddenly had to sprint. Their own ultras were pouring on to the Allianz Riviera pitch, a furious charge from the second tier to the first, and then on to the grass. Players, staff, journalists – everyone – were locked inside the stadium until after midnight as trouble flared outside.
For Ineos, it was the perfect, damning snapshot of a project gone badly wrong.
From Champions League dreams to the brink
This season was supposed to start with Champions League qualifiers and a sense of lift-off. It could now end with relegation to Ligue 2.
Failing to beat Metz – already down, already broken, and with nothing to play for – means Nice must face Saint-Étienne in a two-legged relegation playoff later this month. The timing could hardly be worse for Ineos, who bought the club for €100m in 2019 with the stated ambition of turning them into challengers to PSG’s dominance. Now they are trying to sell, desperate to cut their losses, leaving behind a smouldering ruin.
All Nice had to do on Sunday night was win a home league game, something they had not managed since 29 October. The opponent could hardly have been more accommodating. Metz had won just three league matches all season and none under Benoît Tavenot, appointed in January. His personal record for the campaign across Metz and Bastia: no wins, nine draws, 18 defeats, two relegations. A season from hell.
Nice still made the assignment look mountainous.
“Get your arses into gear,” came the chant from the home end before kick-off. The mood in the stands was a strange cocktail: anger, a hint of celebration, a flicker of anticipation. One banner urged “Everyone to Paris,” pointing towards Friday’s Coupe de France final against Lens at the Stade de France. A huge tifo honoured club captain Dante, who hoped this would be his last match at the Allianz Riviera before retiring at 42.
Any sense of celebration evaporated quickly.
Cup final in the shadow of survival
The anger swallowed everything else. Just as the Coupe de France final should have been the club’s big occasion, the looming playoff against Saint-Étienne now dominates every thought.
“It is no longer a priority at all,” co-president Jean-Pierre Rivère admitted of the cup final. Nice will go to Paris with their minds elsewhere, haunted by a recent precedent. Last season, Reims lost the cup final to PSG and then fell to Metz in the relegation playoff. Yehvann Diouf, who played in all three of those games for Reims before joining Nice in the summer, knows exactly how that story can end. He will be desperate not to live through a sequel.
The warning signs had been there, scattered all over the season. The club’s objectives were deliberately vague: a return to Europe, without specifying which competition. Investment slowed as Ineos turned their gaze towards Manchester United. Key players such as Evann Guessand and Marcin Bulka were sold, and their replacements fell short. Kevin Carlos, brought in to fill Guessand’s role, has not scored a league goal. Targets looked elsewhere; Mahdi Camara chose Rennes instead of Nice.
Franck Haise saw the storm forming early. In the autumn he complained that he did not have the squad to compete for Europe, then went further, saying he simply could not “create a group” from what he had. The fanbase grew increasingly hostile. The players bore the brunt, but sporting director Florian Maurice and Fabrice Bocquet – briefly president in place of Rivère – were also in the firing line.
The situation turned poisonous in November. Terem Moffi and Jérémie Boga were attacked by their own supporters as they stepped off the team bus at the training ground after a defeat at Lorient. Both players later left the club. Bocquet departed. Haise followed by the end of the year.
Puel’s return and a club tearing itself apart
Rivère’s answer was to bring back Claude Puel. It has been a catastrophe.
Believing Haise had lost his fight, the club agreed a mutual parting in December and handed the reins to Puel. Since then, Nice have won just two league games in 18. His tactics and team selections have been savaged by supporters, who see a side without identity, without conviction, without direction.
On Sunday, as another lifeless performance drifted towards a goalless conclusion, boos rolled around the Allianz Riviera almost non-stop. It was impossible to tell exactly who they were aimed at. The players? The coach? The board? Ineos? It felt like everyone.
The tension was visible at half-time when the ultras left their usual position high in the second tier and moved down towards the front. Nobody thought they were chasing a better view. When the match ended and the goalless draw was confirmed, they surged on to the pitch. Security lines buckled. The night descended into chaos.
Puel tried to show understanding. Their “disappointment is legitimate,” he said. Rivère appealed for “unity”. The words sounded thin against the backdrop of a club so clearly fractured. With talks ongoing with potential buyers, Ineos may soon wash their hands of the whole affair. If they do, they will leave behind a club scarred, divided and teetering on the edge of the second tier.
Nantes in flames, Coach Vahid bows out
Nice were not alone in their turmoil. Across the country, another fallen giant imploded.
Nantes, already relegated, hosted Toulouse in their final match of the season. It lasted 22 minutes. The club’s owners stayed away because of safety fears, and those fears were quickly justified. Ultras hurled ominous black flares and stormed the pitch in large numbers. Players, officials and staff sprinted for the tunnel.
One man stayed.
Vahid Halilhodžić stood his ground on the pitch, facing down masked fans in balaclavas, trying to reason with them. He eventually walked off, anguish and sadness carved into his expression. “In the 40 years of my career as a player and then a manager, I have never experienced that. It will be deeply engraved in my memory,” he said afterwards.
He then confirmed it would be his final act in football. An extraordinary, chaotic, heartbreaking scene as a veteran coach said goodbye to the game.
PSG’s strange title party
On a night full of stark, violent images, Paris served up something different: the surreal.
PSG had already secured the Ligue 1 title in midweek with a win over Lens, but the trophy presentation was delayed. The plan was to celebrate after Sunday’s Paris derby against Paris FC. There was a snag. The hosts, having just secured their own safety in Ligue 1, had their own post-match ceremonies lined up and were in no mood to hand over the stage.
PSG improvised. Before kick-off they erected a small stand in front of their away fans, a makeshift platform for champions. The celebrations were oddly muted, almost apologetic – a fitting scene for a club that now measures itself almost exclusively by its performances in Europe.
On the pitch, it showed. With Luis Enrique already openly focused on the Champions League final against Arsenal, PSG slipped to a 2-1 defeat to Paris FC that meant nothing in the table and even less in their season’s story.
Nice, by contrast, have everything riding on what comes next. A cup final overshadowed by fear. A playoff that will define the club’s future. A fanbase at war with its own team.
If this is the end of the Ineos era on the Côte d’Azur, it leaves a brutal question hanging in the Riviera air: who will be left to pick up the pieces?
