Emmanuel CUEFF

In 2002, François Pinault completely transformed the organizational chart of the club. Out went Ruello, Gourcuff and Lefillatre, in came the duo Pierre Dréossi and Emmanuel Cueff. The latter was Assistant Managing Director of Artemis, Pinault’s subsidiary company, which is heavily involved as a major shareholder of the club. The first objective was to put Rennes back on a sound financial footing, especially after an extremely expensive year 2000. With 16 departures and only 6 arrivals, the cutbacks as of July 2002 were massive, and despite some failures on the playing side, such as Bergeroo, Loeschbor and Ivanov, the club started to rebuild in the course of a tough season, which ended in them just avoiding relegation from Ligue 1 with Halilhodzic. The following years with Bölöni as Manager coincided with a revival in the club’s fortunes, with the shrewd cut-price signings of players like Frei, Källström, Mensah or Edman, as well as having a complete confidence in the promising generation of Youth Team players who won the Gambardella Cup in 2003, such as Faty, Bourillon, Gourcuff or Briand. Cueff left the club’s board, and that of Artemis at the same time, in December 2006 with a sense of having done the job he set out to do. His greatest achievement was qualifying the club for the UEFA Cup for the first time in 2005.