A true living legend on the Marseille side, where his goal in the Champions League final still thrills OM fans, Basile Boli has made many enemies in the Oise.
If Basile Boli is still welcomed as a hero in Marseille, where he carried the flame of the 2024 Olympic Games, the sole scorer in the 1993 Champions League final against Milan is no longer welcome in Noyon, in the Oise. There, the former footballer was supposed to carry out a school project, but he ultimately did not achieve his ambitions… The son of a soldier, he dreamed of creating “La Basile Boli Academy” on a old French barracks. Empty of soldiers for years now, this gigantic 47 hectare space was ceded to the local community of municipalities in 2011. A few years later, an economic campus with businesses was able to set up in the area. But in order to completely revive this historic place in the Oise, Boli wanted to build a football school there. In February 2023, on the set of 12 coups de midi on TF1, the former OM player confirmed the existence of this “Basile Boli Academy”: “It’s a sports-studies school that you enter from the age of 14. We accompany the kids until they graduate. When they are good, they go to football, otherwise they continue in the sports economy. The school is located in Noyon, in Oise ». A lie, since the school never existed…
“Basile Boli never provided the funds”
What Pascal Dollé, vice-president of the community of communes of Pays Noyonnais, confirmed in a report on France 3. “The building which is right in front of us was the one for the locker rooms and the well-being of the players. And here, we were to find four football fields which were to be built by Boli. But Basile Boli never provided the funds. We did not see a cent after signing our promise of sale, perhaps he did not manage to raise the money as is sometimes the case in projects of this type. He was given an ultimatum in June 2023 to find out if he really wanted to carry out the project. It had been going on for 5 years. The ultimatum ended in October 2023. We received a letter at the beginning of October saying he wanted to finalize the file and since then, nothing. So we stop there. The notaries do what is necessary to close the file. No one claims compensation and then there you go…”launched the politician, disillusioned by this Boli affair…
“Making empty promises like that is not good”
However, in 2022, a sales agreement had been signed between Basile Boli and the local authority, with the project of building a synthetic pitch, changing rooms, a balneotherapy area, a collective catering service… In the end, nothing none of this has seen the light of day. Much to the chagrin of local children. “Making empty promises like that is not right. In addition to children who, I think, had the dream of entering this school, especially with Basile Boli. It's a shame. We must not speak when we do not assume the consequences behind…”said, on France 3, a mother of a licensee at the Roye Noyon club.
Except that the story does not end there, since according to information from Le Canard Enchaîné, Boli left a balance of €263,000 to a Parisian architecture firm… Refusing to pay off this debt, knowing that he never responded to court summons or registered letters, Boli however defended himself. “The project is on hold but we plan to do it in the south eventually”recently explained, So Foot, the former defender of the France team, who therefore handles this matter as strongly as his header against Milan in the C1 final. Not enough to convince the people injured in this affair, but Boli's image is indeed tarnished…
