“Today this club can say that it is respectable”

The sports association, which is now the only entity still in activity of the legendary club, presented on Thursday the details of the legal recovery plan validated by the Courts. The amount of his debt was reduced to 480,000 euros. Ten years are provided for repayment.

GFCA Football is finally getting its head above water. After more than three years of descent into hell, relegation, an economic collapse, the liquidation of its SAS and two investigations targeting its ex-managers, Gazélec can finally announce some good news: “Today this club can say that it is respectable. Administratively, it is squared away”summarizes Me Stéphane Nesa, lawyer of the GFCA association.

The structure saw its recovery plan validated in mid-October by the courts and presented the details on October 31.

First step, and not the least, the amount of the residual debt, which was revised downwards, thanks to meticulous work. The declared debt, which originally amounted to 1,362,579 euros, was reduced to some 137,781 euros of retained debts (i.e. 1,020,000 euros disputed). Added to the 342,578 euros admitted before the dispute, we reach the sum of 480,000 euros, which will have to be repaid over ten years with tiered interest rates.

How ? With long-term work, which began “by breaking into the procedure”explained with a smile during the press conference Me Stéphane Nesa, the lawyer for the GFCA. Understand: by installing a new office at the head of the association and at the presidency, Louis Poggi. At the start of the procedure, the GFCA SAS had in fact just been placed in liquidation and saving the sports association had become the only way to save the club. However, the association was at the time “without arms, legs or head”Me Nesa insists.

It was therefore necessary to rebuild everything, with major handicaps including very large debts and ongoing legal investigations which delayed access to the accounts and documents necessary to put everything back together.

Second step: do the accounts. 1,362,579 euros of declared debts are therefore displayed on the meter. “When a collective procedure is opened for the benefit of an association or a company, all real or supposed creditors can come and declare a debtexplains the lawyer. The first job is to take the statements of claim, those that are worth contesting and those that are let slide.”.

After their sorting work, the lawyer and the president decide to contest 1,020,000 euros, an amount composed mainly of invoices for “service providers of the company but who were in reality linked to the association”details Me Stéphane Nesa. It is moreover “the commercial company itself which had declared the largest part of the association’s liabilities”specifies the lawyer. 783,490 euros declared through the liquidator of the SAS, of which 350,000 euros were canceled by the courts.

“433,490 minus 433,490 is zero, President”

The 433,000 euros remaining in the debate “had not taken into account the period between July 2022 and January 2023, the date of the liquidation of the company”continues Stéphane Nesa. And do the calculation: “433,490 minus 433,490 is zero, President”.

To support their reasoning, the new managers of the association had to unearth cash flow agreements avoiding “to force the association and society to live under the confusion of heritage”according to Stéphane Nesa. And at the same time, to prevent creditors from claiming from the association debts which the company had not been able to pay.

In short, “all the elements were there for the disaster,” summarizes the lawyer.(…) But at the GFCA we don’t lose, we learn. With Antho (Anthony Alessandri, vice-president of the association, Editor’s note), when we arrived in this club at 5 and a half years old, the first lesson given to us was to not give up. When we took a hit, we looked straight ahead and the idea was to fill the bag and leave.”

Today, it is not yet the end of the fairy tale, because the club remains in receivership proceedings. But the worst is over and the future looks brighter in terms of the possibilities of finding sponsors, applying for grants and progressing at the sporting level.

July 8, 2021: the GFCA is definitively administratively downgraded from National 2 to National 3 by the control body for amateur clubs.

October 18, 2021: the GFCA accounts are seized as part of a legal procedure led by the Specialized Interregional Jurisdiction of Marseille. The president of the club, Mathieu Messina resigned immediately, as did the majority shareholders including Antony Perrino and Pierre Anchetti.

November 28, 2022: Four people are indicted as part of a new investigation into the finances of GFCA Football. Among the suspects, Johan Carta, the president of the club.

December 19, 2022: the GFCA commercial company is placed in receivership by the Ajaccio commercial court.

January 11, 2023: 300 people come together to think about a solution to save the GFCA.

January 30, 2023: the GFCA commercial company is placed in liquidation by the Ajaccio commercial court. This decision leads to the immediate withdrawal of the two senior teams which represented Gazélec: the National 3 flag team and the reserve which played in Regional 2.

February 11, 2023 : to save the club, a solution was found: keep the GFCA association, which only manages the youth sections of the Ajaccian club. A new office is created and Louis Poggi is elected president.

February 23, 2023: the Ajaccio judicial court rules out the liquidation of the association and opts for judicial recovery.

15 mars 2023 : Mathieu Messina and Christophe Ettori, former leaders of the GFCA, were sentenced to two years suspended and six months in prison by the Marseille criminal court for concealment of abuse of corporate assets and concealed work. Mathieu Messina is appealing the decision.

24 mars 2023 : the investigating chamber confirms the seizure of the GFCA accounts, to the regret of the new directors of the club.

11 avril 2023 : Olivier Miniconi, former leader of the GFCA whose case was separated, is sentenced to 18 months in prison for aggravated hidden work.

May 16, 2023 : the Ajaccio judicial court validates the continuation of the activity of the GFCA Football Association.

July 12, 2023 : Gazélec d’Ajaccio is authorized by the French Football Federation to play in the Regional 2 championship the following season.

May 26, 2024: The GFCA is crowned champion of Regional 2. It will now play in Regional 1.

October 15, 2024: after 18 months of procedure, the court validates the recovery plan presented by the GFCA