Ligue 2: a suspended prison sentence of one and a half years required against Saïd Chabane, owner of Angers

Eighteen months of suspended prison time were requested on Friday at the Bobigny criminal court against the former president of the SCO of Angers Saïd Chabane for complicity in the illegal exercise of the profession of agent and up to to one year against the four other defendants.

The current owner of the Angevin club is indeed being prosecuted for complicity and not for illegal exercise of the profession of agent as was erroneously indicated by the court.

Since Monday, three men active in the world of football and Lasana K., a sports agent officially licensed by the French Football Federation, herself a civil party to the trial, have appeared in the dock since Monday.

Two years in prison, one of which was suspended, and a ban on working as an agent and managing a business for three years were required against this 41-year-old man, who was prosecuted for complicity.

Against Jalal B. and Abdelkader K., childhood friends of Lasana K. involved in relationships with football players, the same two-year sentence, one of which was suspended, was requested, as well as a permanent ban on practicing the profession of sports agent and managing a business for 3 years.

They are accused of having exercised the profession of agent without having the license. During the trial, they defended themselves by explaining that they had been paid for simple missions of scouting, recruiting and providing physical and mental support for young talents.

“They call themselves and call themselves sports agents, they behave like sports agents. They have no right to be,” castigated prosecutor Rémi Chaise in his requisitions. “The law has not interested them all these years, it is the lure of gain that has interested them,” he condemned.

The prosecutor also asked to uphold the guilt of the four defendants - including Saïd Chabane - prosecuted for aggravated money laundering and that of Jalal B. for misuse of corporate assets.

Against the fifth defendant, a fine of 5,000 euros and a definitive ban on exercising the profession of agent were requested, as well as the confiscation of sums of money seized from the accounts of the defendants' companies.

“I have the impression that in their eagerness to succeed through an eminently respectable vector, especially in this department, sport, a vector of social emancipation, they have given in to the mirage that we all have in mind: the mirage of “easy money,” accused the prosecutor. Defense lawyers will argue in the afternoon.