Nice got some great news in early April. Three months into his reign as the club’s manager, Didier Digard was selected as one of 10 people to embark upon French football’s highest coaching diploma, the BEPF. It will save Sir Jim Ratcliffe, Nice’s owner and Britain’s richest person, €25,000 per match.
That’s the fee the club have had to shell out since early January, every time former Middlesbrough midfielder Digard has taken charge of Nice without the requisite coaching badges. Fellow Ligue 1 outfit Reims have had to cough up the same, after hiring part-British boss Will Still. For Ratcliffe, the fee had been worth it – the 36-year-old Digard led Nice to a 12-game unbeaten run in his first dozen league outings since being promoted from reserve team gaffer.
Yet since Ratcliffe sealed his €100 million purchase of Nice in the summer of 2019, things haven’t always been straightforward…
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Les Aiglons (The Eaglets) had just finished seventh in France’s top tier when the Greater Manchester-born billionaire completed his takeover. In 2017, they’d come third in the first campaign under their previous owners, a Chinese-American consortium. Mario Balotelli had arrived from Liverpool, hitting 17 goals under Swiss boss Lucien Favre to earn them a place in the Champions League qualifying rounds. They knocked out Ajax before succumbing to Napoli.
By the time Ratcliffe bought Nice in 2019, Favre had left for Borussia Dortmund, to be
