2024-03-29 12:45:10
Barely out of one trial, Saïd Chabane appeared for another. The owner of Angers SCO was sentenced on Friday March 22 to two years in prison, one of which was suspended, for sexual assault on six women, employees and ex-employees, and acquitted for a seventh.
This time, it is for acts of “illegal exercise of the profession of agent” and “organized gang money laundering” that he has been appearing since March 25 before the 15th chamber of the judicial court of Bobigny (Seine-Saint- Denis). The prosecutor requested a suspended prison sentence of eighteen months for him this Friday.
At his side are four men also involved in the world of football: Jalal Benalla, ex-recruiter of the Angers club, Lassana K., sports agent licensed to the French Football Federation (FFF), Abdelkader K., intermediary at the origin of the investigation, currently imprisoned for other facts, and Abdelkader C., scout.
What requisitions for the other co-defendants?
Concerning Jalal Benalla and Abdelkader K. The prosecutor requested, for each of them, two years in prison, one of which was suspended and an adjustment for the firm part (no imprisonment). A permanent ban on exercising the profession of agent and a ban on managing a business for 3 years is also requested. The sentence required for Lassana K. is identical except for the ban on running a business. Against Abdelkader C. a fine of 5,000 euros and a definitive ban on exercising the activity of an agent were requested.
The companies of the first three (Kingsport Agency, Sport Total Consulting and AK Sport Consulting) are also being prosecuted. The FFF, the professional football league (LFP) and the union of French sports agents have become civil parties.
Among the defendants, only Lassana K is officially a sports agent. The profession is highly regulated in France. You must take an exam at the FFF to obtain your license. Jalal Benalla, Abdelkader K. and Abdelkader C. did not have this license. They would, however, have been paid for player agent services via their companies. The facts would have lasted from January 2017 to March 2023.
What is Saïd Chabane doing in all this?
Saïd Chabane would have supplied the network by doing business with these “fake” agents. But also with “real” people, therefore licensed, who served as intermediaries – certifying the transfers of unofficial agents – and then giving them kickbacks. On the stand this Thursday, March 28, the 55-year-old manager, navy blue suit on his back, admits to having established a working relationship with Lassana K. “Out of three, four cases no more,” says Chabane. And Jalal Benalla, former employee of SCO Angers, for whom he took a liking. “Benalla arrived saying that he had contacts, that there were moves to be made. He was competent because he knew our cash flow problems.”
Jalal Benalla was employed for three months. From September to December 2022 he was a recruiter at SCO Angers. He would have received, between 2019 and 2021, more than a million euros from the club, to unearth young talents. But the prosecution believes that given the amounts of the commissions and the regularity of the contacts, he exercised the mission of a sports agent. “Is it normal for a scout to be better paid than a licensed agent? », Ironically asked the president of the court, in view of the 477,000 euros paid to Lasana K., FFF agent, also accused in the case. Jalal Benalla, former judoka partner of Teddy Riner, does not know how to answer.
And the invoices from the Angers SCO club, which concern neither him nor his company, found at his home during a search? He doesn’t know either. A memorandum of understanding between the club and a player, at home too? Same, nothing.
The defendants defend themselves by explaining that they only played an intermediary role, like certain recruiters employed by clubs. Saïd Chabane claims that he would have paid people operating as scouts, looking for talent. When he left his 36 hours of police custody last April, Saïd Chabane already refuted all the accusations. It’s always like that. “I contest,” he asserts at the bar. His lawyer, Me Bernard Benaiem, pleads for his release.
How did the business start?
The investigators’ first suspicions are based on statements from one of the defendants, Abdelkader K., wiretapped in the summer of 2021 in another extortion case. Discussions focus on the transfer market. Saïd Chabane was quickly suspected of having used this network for the needs of his club. The businessman has managed it since 2011. He brought it up to L1 in 2015 and regained control of the athlete in April 2020.
Finances are bad. In 2021, 37 million revenues are missing. “We were all looking for money to finish the season,” says the club owner at the helm. In football without money it doesn’t work, it’s a risky activity.”
The investigations carried out on the bank accounts of the defendants would have made it possible to corroborate certain statements. For months, invoices were examined to trace financial flows. The investigators discovered, under the cover of fictitious services, an invoicing system. A significant flow of money circulates between the company, service providers and SCO Angers.
The club, relegated to L 2 at the end of the 2022-2023 season, is today not affected by the proceedings. Entangled in a succession of businesses and a catastrophic sporting situation, the father gave up his place as president to the son, Romain, in March 2023. But Saïd Chabane, still director, remains at the center of the game.
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