Having overseen a busy and largely successful summer rebuild at Nice, the 67-year-old is already looking at how the club's shared ownership with Manchester United could be put to practical use, particularly for developing academy prospects who aren't quite the finished article.
"After that, I want to go to Manchester United — see if there's a possibility of doing something with them," Ricort told L'Équipe.
"Sure, we're not going to get Bruno Fernandes. But a brilliant South American talent who isn't ready yet, you send him our way, and we can finish developing him."
The idea echoes the pathway Strasbourg have built with parent club Chelsea, and Ricort has two of his own academy graduates in mind who he believes are ready to command serious transfer interest of their own.
"We have young players of real quality whose contracts don't reflect their value, so I'm going to call their agents quickly and try to renegotiate," he said.
"Djibril Coulibaly and Junior [Mandza] are potential France players, maybe. With what Junior is doing at 17, I'm sure that by the end of the year we'll have a €45-50m offer." He admitted he hasn't even had time to properly visit Nice's training academy since taking the job.
Ricort's return to the club he first served as sporting director between 2005 and 2009 has already been vindicated by a transfer window he steered with conviction, landing Elye Wahi, Axel Witsel and Mohammed Amoura among others to overhaul a squad that only avoided relegation via the play-offs last season. He credited INEOS directly for making the ambitious business possible despite years of criticism the ownership group has faced on the Côte d'Azur.
"From what I hear from the outside, it's always that — lots of criticism," he said. "But personally, I'm very happy to have INEOS as owners of this club. They've shown us that, despite everything, we have a team that holds up. They could not have cared less. That's not what happened. I had genuinely invaluable help from Jean-Claude Blanc. After that, we had to make savings."
The Amoura deal in particular came down to the wire, with three other clubs also in the race.
"On the Saturday, I'm told Lyon are trying to get him. And Rennes. Our medical was set for Monday, the plane ticket for Sunday evening. Al-Sadd — another club in on it — sent a private jet while we were signing him, to take the player there," Ricort said. "I liked the kid. We made the call. I told him: you've got a place here. You can have a season alongside Wahi and Amoura... The 0-0s are over," he added with a smile.
He was similarly candid about the process behind bringing in Witsel, who arrived to help settle a dressing room that had drifted through a turbulent campaign.
"When I called him, I said: you're going to solve the changing-room problem for me," Ricort said, recalling how he sought a character reference from Rudi Garcia after Nice lost Laurent Abergel to injury. "I couldn't find anyone who had a bad word to say about him. So I said, right, we're doing this."