Procedural questions paralyzed on Monday the first day of the trial in Bobigny of Saïd Chabane, owner and former president of the SCO d’Angers (L2 football), and four other people, suspected of having illegally exercised the profession of agent of players and laundered money from 2017 to 2023.
After more than two hours of deliberation, the court rejected, at midday, the referral requests made by the lawyers of several defendants and a civil party.
While recognizing that there had been “a malfunction in the transmission” of documents, the judge indicated that, among the nearly 1,800 elements sent at the beginning of March, “a large number already appeared in the digitized copy”, available to the gone for months.
“Are we in a fair trial for everyone?” questioned Me Sandrine Beressi, on behalf of the council of the Bobigny Bar Association, contacted by the rejected defendants. After a second deliberation, the court renewed its rejection of their requests in the afternoon.
Before a possible start of the examination on the merits on Tuesday morning, the criminal court is waiting for the president of the court of appeal to rule on the admissibility of the appeals filed urgently by the counsel for three defendants.
The thick file is the result of an investigation carried out from September 2021 to April 2023 and which began, according to sources close to the file, with the wiretapping of one of the defendants in another extortion case. Through wiretaps, investigators raise suspicions about the activities of men active in the world of football.
They are accused by the prosecution of having exercised, without having a license, an activity as a sports agent by serving as intermediaries between football clubs, young talents and other sports agents. The events allegedly lasted from January 2017 to March 2023 in Paris and several towns in Seine-Saint-Denis and Hauts-de-Seine.
The French Football Federation (FFF), the regulatory body for sports agent licenses, the professional football league and the union of French sports agents have become civil parties. The companies of three of the defendants are also being prosecuted, in particular for aggravated money laundering.
Saïd Chabane, dismissed for the same charges, was sentenced Friday to two years in prison, one of which was suspended, for sexual assaults on six women and acquitted for a seventh. His lawyers have announced their desire to appeal. Since March 2023, Saïd Chabane has resigned from his position and left the reins of the club to his son, Romain Chabane.
