The Hindu : Sport / Football : Deschamps leads tributes to Robert Louis-Dreyfus

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Deschamps leads tributes to Robert Louis-Dreyfus

MARSEILLE: Marseille coach Didier Deschamps led the tributes Sunday to Robert Louis-Dreyfus, Marseille’s longtime owner who died on Saturday of leukemia at the age of 63.

“Marseille in mourning,” was the somber message posted on the front page of the French club’s Web site, and former club captain Deschamps praised the billionaire businessman who took over the club more than a decade ago.

“He was genuinely passionate about sport and football in particular. He loved sportsmen and considered them as heroes,” Deschamps said Sunday. “Despite his position in the business world, he was very humble and accessible which is rare enough in (football) to be underlined.”

As a mark of respect, Marseille’s training session on Sunday in Evian was to be held behind closed doors.

The club’s TV channel stopped all its scheduled programs Sunday, and will instead show only the club’s logo and the words “Marseille in mourning” on a black screen until programs resume on Monday.

Louis-Dreyfus invested about euro220 million ($307 million) into Marseille — but he could not deliver the club its first trophy since the Champions League in 1993 as a succession of managers came and went.

“The best homage Marseille’s staff and players can pay to him is to have the best season possible,” added Deschamps, who took over as coach from Eric Gerets.

Marseille finished second last year, three points behind Bordeaux.

Tough time

When Louis-Dreyfus, formerly a director of sportswear labels such as Adidas and Salomon, took over in 1996 the club was reeling from a match-fixing scandal that shook French football. It had been stripped of its 1992-93 league title and demoted to the second division. The club kept its European Cup crown, however.

“It’s thanks to Robert Louis-Dreyfus that the club is back among the contenders today,” Marseille’s president Jean-Claude Dassier said. After Gerets left, Louis-Dreyfus sacked president Pape Diouf in acrimonious circumstances, replacing him with Dassier. — AP

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