His departure from OL for incompatibility of moods with Juninho was never really digested by Jean-Michel Aulas. Florian Maurice seems to him today fully fulfilled in Rennes. Where he confirms. But if we launch him on the subject, he does not hesitate to give a clear opinion on his former employer.
“The cemeteries are populated by people who thought they were indispensable”, declared Jean-Michel Aulas, a few days after the announcement of the departure of Florian Maurice, in charge of recruitment for ten years at Olympique Lyonnais, heading to Stade Rennais. Technical director of the Breton club since 2020, if the 48-year-old former striker flourishes in his new role, he nevertheless retains some resentment towards OL. As he mentioned in an interview given to SoFoot.
There are relationships that mark. Hope of the club from 1984, pro player from 1992 to 1997, consultant on OLTV in 2005, then appointed by the duo Rémi Garde-Claude Puel to the “cell” of recruitment from 2009, Florian Maurice is intimately linked to the club. Olympic Lyonnais. This explains the bitterness publicly expressed by Jean-Michel Aulas the day the talent scout, himself talented, decided to pack his bags. The departure of a spiritual son? For Florian Maurice, it was only a professional relationship.
Aulas/Maurice, love was not reciprocal
“I have known President Aulas for a very long time. I arrived at the club at the age of 10 in 1984. He was not yet president at the time. We met when I turned professional. I simply had a working relationship with him. He was my boss, I didn’t go to dinner or spend evenings at his place. We saw each other only in this professional setting, ” dropped the interested party, before bouncing back on the terms “disappointed love” employed by Aulas.“Personally, I’ve never felt like that on my side. I never felt like I was his son or that he was my father. He was my boss.”
Shadow worker, as he says in the exchange with our colleagues from SoFoot (“I worked for ten years alone in Lyon, it may seem extreme, but we got results”), Florian Maurice felt a break when Juninho arrived. The former free-kick taker from OL’s golden years was the trigger. “To be honest, I learned that Juninho was appointed the day he arrived. (…) I’m not saying that I should have been given the job, but I would have liked someone to talk to me about it. When you’ve been working like crazy for a club for ten years…”
Florian Maurice does not understand Bruno Cheyrou…
An unexpected arrival, a lack of consideration and a lack of communication. Florian Maurice did not hesitate long before answering the call from Stade Rennais. “I would have liked someone to call me to tell me about the project, about my future relationship with Juninho. I didn’t have that. I understood that I could no longer go higher in Lyon. We spent eight months together with Juninho, I have no reason to blame him, it was the president’s choice, but I realized that it didn’t work. When Rennes called me, it was normal for me to consider him.” he explained.
When it comes to discussing his succession to Lyon, Florian Maurice does not hesitate to say that he does not share the vision of the job of recruiter as imagined by Bruno Cheyrou. According to the new OL recruitment manager, you have to have been a professional footballer to know the value of a player. “To me, that’s wrong. (…) Gérard Bonneau (ex-recruiter of young people in Lyon, editor’s note) was not a pro, and he is undoubtedly one of the best recruiters of young people that I have known. In the recruitment unit for training in Rennes, there is not a pro player. It means nothing”.
and has some regrets about his departure from OL
Despite tensions, and a Florian Maurice who is now 100% from Rennes (“Today, my 10-year-old son is a Rennes supporter, he plays at the Stade. (…) Rennes is my club”), the native of Sainte-Foy-lès-Lyon has not broken all ties with Jean-Michel Aulas. He even has some regrets. “At the time, it happened in a phone call, I said to him: “Listen president, I am leaving. “I can also understand that he didn’t like it, I could have brought him in a different way. (…) We ate together recently before Lyon-Rennes with Olivier Cloarec, Vincent Ponsot and Jean-Michel Aulas, but we don’t talk about all that, it’s a bit taboo between us. I still have this regret to have left like that from OL..
