European football in general, and French football in particular, is experiencing huge financial difficulties and insolvencies. This paper analyses the bankruptcy of French football clubs between the 2008/09 and 2015/16 seasons. Various prediction models were used over the period 2008/09-2013/14 to create a model applied to French football and to provide regulatory bodies with an additional tool that could be used to evaluate clubs. A validation test was made on the 2014/15 and 2015/16 seasons. This paper shows that a prediction model for bankruptcy cannot be generalized to apply to all French football clubs. It also shows that the use of a revised version of Altman's model is applicable to French football clubs. Finally, a new bankruptcy prediction model allows us to obtain better results. The evolution of the score over time is an important signal to identify and anticipate the financial deterioration of a club.
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