It’s a series of remarkable events that ended up costing Luka Elsner his position as head coach of Reims and Le Havre in Ligue 1. Everything was going well and his team was at the top of the standings when the president who hired him was fired, triggering a chain reaction that led to the departure of the coach without any compensation, leaving him devastated to see his team sink.
“The Polish media called us a cabaret because every week there was a new show”: this is how Luka Elsner, the former coach of Reims, described his short-lived adventure at the Cracow club in L’Équipe, where he left without any compensation after his team sank despite his efforts. This was due to a series of chain reactions and remarkable events that precipitated his downfall.
Everything had started well for Elsner, a Slovenian coach who had built a good reputation in France with Le Havre between 2022 and 2024. After a good start to the season, his team was at the top of the standings and fighting for qualification. But upon returning from the winter break on January 7, the president who hired him was sacked. “Why? I have no idea,” Elsner said.
Problem: the new president, Elzbieta Filipiak, who is also the minority owner of the club, made a series of catastrophic decisions for the team. “We sold our number 9 (Filip Stojilkovic) for three million euros to Pisa. We also sold the vice-captain, lost the captain due to Achilles tendons, and didn’t follow our recruitment plan. And a month later, the president resigned due to a disagreement with the majority shareholder! We found ourselves in the sporting sector alone, without a president, without a sports director.” Described as an “astonishing” situation by Luka Elsner, who had “never seen anything like it.”
As expected, the situation deteriorated, and his team slowly sank. He first offered to resign without compensation, a proposal rejected by the management, who eventually agreed to it a few weeks later. “I felt that, for them, it was the only lever to pull,” said Elsner, who left the club on April 20.
Today, he reflects on this absurd season, acknowledging that it was “impossible to foresee such a upheaval in advance.” While trying to put this bizarre situation into perspective: “There are two ways to see failures: either it puts you under pressure, or it gives you a boost and rejuvenates you. In my case, I am incredibly motivated. It boosted me.”
