The UNFP, union of professional footballers, supported Tuesday in a press release the players of ASJ Soyaux in full “disarray”: they have not been paid since May because this pioneer of women’s football in France is bankrupt.
The club “leaves players abandoned, under contract, soon chased out of their accommodation, deprived of their means of transport (both being the responsibility of the employer) in addition to waiting in vain for wages that they now know – the club has warned them – no longer have to touch”, wrote the National Union of Professional Footballers in a press release.
The ASJ Soyaux players “do not intend to unilaterally break their contract, as they are encouraged to do, but (…) are determined to assert their right”, added the union.
Sportingly relegated to the second division at the end of this season, the club located east of Angoulême, in Charente, could not present a 2023-2024 budget and disappeared from the national championships, condemned on appeal by the Management. National Control and Management Authority (DNCG).
Excluded from national competitions by the financial policeman, Soyaux had appealed and on June 21 launched an appeal to local communities and businesses to avoid disappearing.
The blue and white formation, an exclusively female club, was champion of France in 1984 and was notably that of the former coach Corinne Deacon.
“How can we at the same time hasten to support the French team (women’s) a few days before its entry into the World Cup (…) and watch, insensitive, die little by little one of our institutions (of) women’s football”, asks the UNFP.
