Lyon (AFP) – Lyon formalized on Wednesday the departure of its coach Paulo Fonseca for Sporting Portugal, with compensation of five million euros in return.
Published on: 04/11/2026 - 11:33
The 53-year-old technician, who arrived at Olympique Lyonnais on January 31, 2025 to replace the sacked Pierre Sage, was under contract with Olympique Lyonnais until June 30, 2027.
While thanking the Portuguese for his investment, the Rhone club nevertheless “deeply regretted, all the more so due to its timing in the middle of the season, an unexpected decision”.
Fonseca leaves OL while the club is in 3rd place in the League after 9 days, and is competing in the Europa League.
His compatriot Jorge Maciel, 41, one of the assistants, will take charge of the team for the next two matches, Thursday against Real Sociedad in C3 and at Brest on Sunday in L1, until the arrival of the new coach who will probably be announced at the start of the international break.
“Carlos Vicens is part of a list of technicians likely to join us,” sports director Matthieu Louis-Jean told AFP.
“Paulo came to see me last week to say that he had received an offer from Sporting and that he had accepted, explaining to me that it was a choice of the heart concerning his childhood club,” Louis-Jean said again.
"I didn't expect that at all. I tried to understand the reasons but very quickly I understood that for him it was an offer that could not be refused, and that for us it would be complicated because we cannot hold someone against their will," he stressed.
"We would have liked to finish the season with Paulo and we were committed to a possible extension. But when I felt that he might not be 100% in the project, I spoke about it to Michael (Gerlinger) and Michele (Kang) and we thought together with the idea of protecting the institution sportingly but also financially", explained Matthieu Louis-Jean "disappointed and touched because we had created a fairly strong relationship with Paulo".
“We have to adapt and it’s also a question of anticipation. We had already worked, as for the players, on a list of coaches who could potentially adapt to our playing identity,” said the manager.
“We quickly started looking for a coach with the same playing principles that we can have, and able to make the team play in the conditions that are ours. The idea is to be in continuity and not start from scratch,” he concluded.
© 2026 AFP
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