In a So Foot interview, Florian Maurice returned to his departure from Olympique Lyonnais in 2020. The manager, now Rennes, replied Jean-Michel Aulas and explained his decision.
Maurice bounced back well with Rennes
After ten years of taking care of the recruitment of Olympique Lyonnais, Florian Maurice left Rennes in May 2020. His choice had caused a lot of talk at the time and had not really been well digested by Lyon president Jean-Michel Aulas.
Aulas, not a father for Mauritius
Following the departure of Maurice, the boss of Les Gones had notably spoken of a love of . For the former striker, that wasn’t really the case. Personally, I’ve never felt like that on my side. I never had the feeling of being his son or that he was my father. He was my boss he corrected in an interview with So Foot.
For someone who trained and then made his debut with OL, the relationship with JMA was purely professional. 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 with him. We saw each other only in this professional setting.
Juninho’s arrival hastened his departure
In the columns of the magazine, Maurice also returned to the reasons which led him to leave OL. Juninho’s appointment as sporting director was the trigger. To be honest, I learned that Juninho was appointed the day he arrived, he says. (…) 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 have you been working like crazy for a club for ten years…
The pill is not passed. The leader understood that he no longer had his place in Lyon. 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, he regrets. I understood that I could no longer go higher than 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.
His little regret
Despite everything, Maurice regrets the way his departure happened. At the time, it happened in a phone call, I said to him: ‘Listen President, I’m leaving. ‘I can also understand that he didn’t like it, I could have brought it up in a different way. (…) I still regret leaving like I did from OL. The regret is perhaps stronger in Lyon, since Juninho walked out last winter when the team occupies a disappointing 10th place nine days from the end of the championship. While Rennes, 3rd in L1, is fighting for a place in the Champions League.
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