This is the beautiful story of FC Espaly. Toured by agents when he was not really an adult, Kévis Gjeci got lost in Switzerland, then in France. Until landing in Espaly where Christian Perbet decided to take humans under his wing, before footballers. Eight years later, the two men feel linked “like a father with his son”.
Before seeing him leave Albania for Switzerland then France, the story of Kévis Gjeci began in England. His parents having fled the civil war in their country, in 1997, he was born in Derby. The Franco-Albanian only lived in this region of the East Midlands for four months. His family was quickly able to return to their country of origin. Kévis therefore grew up in the center of Tirana, the capital, where his mother runs a pizzeria, while his father was involved in the army. The latter was not really passionate about Football and mainly focused on schooling, to push his two boys and his daughter to succeed.
“For 42 days, my father deprived me of a telephone”
“At the time, I didn’t understand why I was enrolled in a school where we went to class until 4 p.m., while my friends finished at 1 p.m. But it was to stop me from doing stupid things,” explains Kévis Gjeci. The results followed for the eldest of the siblings, who embarked on architectural studies. “I was good at math and I liked drawing so I enjoyed it. » Football still occupied an important place in his life. His talent did not go unnoticed and he was quickly called up to the Albanian youth national team.
This adventure left him with good memories and allowed him to grow. If he sometimes “flare up” during this international interlude, his father was never far away to put him back on the right path. An anecdote comes to mind of the footballer. When he did not respect the staff’s instructions, after a nice draw in Rome, Italy, with the U17s. “We had to return at 10 p.m., but as I had played a big match and I was young, I allowed myself to come back later with a girl at the hotel. »
Waited outside his room by the coach, he quickly became disillusioned. And even more so when his father heard about the incident, upon returning to Tirana airport. “For 42 days, he deprived me of a telephone. It was a period when I was already earning 150 euros per month, which was huge for me since the minimum wage in Albania was 200 euros. But after my stupidity, my father only left me 60 cents a day to take the bus to school and back. Sometimes I would walk to class so I could save some of that money and buy things. »
Need to go into exile to progress
Although his parents were not big football fans, they quickly understood that their child had a talent and undoubtedly the opportunity to launch a career. In order to continue his progress, going into exile quickly became the priority option. “It’s less the case now, but Albania was for a long time a corrupt country where doors only opened for the children of important people. This is why it is common to see Albanians leave elsewhere in Europe,” explains the footballer.
