and 1970s – as well as the town's municipality. In 1980, André Bord, a prominent local Gaullist politician and former minister during the Charles de Gaulle and Georges Pompidou presidencies, became chairman. Bord could boast his connections in business, political and artistic elites and vowed to make Racing a big name in French football. However, he quickly entered a confrontation with charismatic manager Gilbert Gress that culminated in September 1980 when the announcement of Gress' departure provoked crowd anger and riots scenes during a game against Nantes. The inability for the influential president and the talented manager to get along with each other and the 1980 trauma may explain why Racing was unable to perform lastingly at the top level after the 1979 title. In 1986, Bord left the professional section and introduced fashion designer Daniel Hechter as his successor. Hechter had previously been banned from pro football following his involvement in the Paris Saint-Germain secret funds scandal but was nevertheless able to re-take a president job at Strasbourg thanks to a sentence reduction. It was the first attempt to bring an outsider to the local context at the club's head, but the experiment ended in failure in 1990 as the club neared bankruptcy. Racing was at that time salvaged by the Strasbourg municipality which took a 49% share of the club but had to relinquish it a few years later as the Pasqua legislation restricted public support to professional sport. In 1997, two projects were competing to buy the municipal share and effectively take control of the club. The first was led by then-president Roland Weller, a local businessman. The second bid was made by American IMG-McCormack Group through its French branch headed by Patrick Proisy. At that time, IMG was trying to develop its activities in European football and had failed the previous year in its effort to buy Olympique de Marseille. The American group presented an ambitious project with an entirely new youth academy as well as plans for a renovated stadium, eventually winning the competition for Racing's ownership for a price of 1.5 million euros. The club became a "Société Anonyme à Objet Sportif" and then a "Société Anonyme Sportive Professionnelle", a status very similar to the general corporate status, albeit with restrictions like the impossibility to enter the stock market and the obligation to keep ties with the original association. Proisy became the chairman of