Adidas Rescuer Robert Louis-Dreyfus Dies

Posted by: Jack Ewing on July 06

The brief obituaries of Robert Louis-Dreyfus in today’s papers focus on his ownership of French football club Olympique Marseilles, which is understandable enough, but overlook what a formidable impact the man had on European business and what a colorful person he was. Louis-Dreyfus, who died of leukemia July 4 at the age of 63, turned around ad agency Saatchi & Saatchi earlier in his career and probably saved sports apparel maker Adidas from oblivion in the 1990s. Born wealthy, he was a billionaire several times over who did business for the fun and the challenge of it, not because he needed the money.

I met him twice, first in Paris in 2004 when we talked about his desire to bring European football management out of the dark ages, and again last year in Switzerland when we spoke about football czar Joseph Blatter of FIFA. Arriving at Louis-Dreyfus’ lakeside villa in Zurich for that second interview, I was surprised to find him wearing a bathrobe with an intravenous tube in his arm. No one had told me he was sick. Louis-Dreyfus was much thinner than when I’d met him earlier, but made no reference to his illness and answered my questions intelligently and candidly.

It was a mark of Louis-Dreyfus’ informality and self-confidence that he would meet a reporter in those circumstances. That’s what I liked about him. Louis-Dreyfus didn’t make any effort that I could perceive to cultivate a public image, or impress people with his wealth and power. He was a renaissance businessman in the sense that he was comfortable in different fields—he had also worked in investment banking and telecommunications--and knew how to enjoy life. (In Sneaker Wars, her history of Adidas, author Barbara Smit says Louis-Dreyfus was a formidable poker player and once dated Kim Basinger.)

Louis-Dreyfus probably wasn’t 100% saint. According to press reports, a French court fined him 200 million euros ($280 million) in 2006 for suspect player transfers. Olympique Marseilles seems to have been a money pit. But Louis-Dreyfus, who also was chairman of Swiss sports marketing company Infront Sports, brought a level of marketing knowhow and financial acumen that is sorely missing from big-league sports. If he'd had more time, I’m sure there was much he could have still accomplished.