The deal is due to be completed by the end of the year, the two sides said.
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The French club confirmed the news on Monday after multiple media reports said McCourt, a former owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team, was in Marseille to meet with current owner Margarita-Louis Dreyfus.
Frank McCourt, former owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team, said Monday he had entered exclusive negotiations to buy Olympique de Marseille and vowed to restore the club to its former glories.
“I’m very excited about making Marseille a champion again”.
Unlike Freeze, it was McCourt’s good fortune that he lives in the television age as he was able to sell the Dodgers to a group headed by Magic Johnson, for $2 billion.
However, it has fallen behind since PSG was taken over by Qatari investors five years ago.
The club are now mid-table in the French league at the outset of the new season, winning only one of their first three games.
The other objectives are to create the best environment for fans, integrate the club into the city and constitute a solid organisation inside and outside the field.
Since he left four years ago, Marseille’s subsequent managers have found it tough going. They finished 13th at the end of last season. But Michel was sacked near the end of the campaign and replaced by Franck Passi, a Marseille midfielder in the late 1980s who is now in charge.
Russian-born Louis-Dreyfus became one of the richest women in the world after she married French businessman Robert Louis-Dreyfus in 1992, and took over Marseille when he died from leukemia in 2009.
“Marseille turns a page in its history”, she said.
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“A new owner who would care for our fantastic club has been chosen among many candidates, in a long and diligent process.I am sure Frank McCourt will be the best choice to succeed my family and secure a great future for OM”.
