The decision was no longer in doubt. The commercial court officially pronounced the liquidation of Amiens Picardie Handball after financial difficulties encountered throughout the season. In its place, the Amiens Handball Club was born. Its senior team returned to the 5th division.
Amiens Picardie Handball (APH) is officially disappearing from the French handball scene. In a decision whose deliberations were made public on Friday, June 28, the commercial court officially pronounced the liquidation of APH.
It is the end of a long year punctuated by financial difficulties which caused the fall of the club.We thank our supporters, the players, the coaches, the managers who worked for this club which managed to climb to the National 1 elite“, writes the APH in a press release.
“Thanks to him and thanks to you, we will have experienced exceptional moments that will remain engraved in our hearts.“, they added.
To take over, the French Handball Federation (FFH) has opted for the project led by Séverine Barbezat with a completely new structure, the Amiens Handball Club (AHC). She becomes president of this club which therefore recovers the affiliation number (mandatory to engage a club in competition).
The AHC is returning to N3 – the equivalent of the 5th national division – while the APH was in N1 (3rd division) a year ago.
As a reminder, at the beginning of June, the legal representative requested the liquidation of Amiens Picardie Handball. All season, the club was faced with significant financial difficulties, brought to light in September 2023 during the administrative relegation from N1 to N2.
A state of finances hidden by the managers, which the players regretted feeling “biased, as if something had been hidden from them“, reported the coach at the time, Julien Richard.
Two months later, the technician and second coach Yuriy Petrenko made the decision to leave the club. “They came to me to tell me they were resigning. Things weren’t going too badly with the players. They said: if it can relieve the club’s finances, we resign“, said President Dominique Pingaud at the time.
