The Montbéliard club was fighting to get out of bankruptcy and play again next season. Sochaux could well play in the third division.
LC with AFP The Football Club Sochaux-Montbéliard could well resume the path of competition in National, from the coming season. © Lionel VADAM / MAXPPP / PHOTOPQR/L’EST REPUBLICAIN/MAXPP Published on 08/17/2023 at 7:48 p.m.
Sochaux could well be saved from bankruptcy. For two months, the club tried to obtain authorization from the DNCG to play the coming season in National, the third division of French football. Obtained Thursday August 17, this authorization would allow, after confirmation of the French Football Federation (FFF) to avoid bankruptcy at Football Club Sochaux-Montbéliard. Jean-Claude Plessis and Pierre Wantiez, both at the head of a group of private investors, presented an FCSM2028 project as well as a budget. These last two plans have obviously convinced the DNCG.
“FC Sochaux-Montbéliard had requested from the French Football Federation its registration for the National Championship and the maintenance of its professional status”, wrote the club in a press release. “This was granted to him after the hearing held before the Professional Club Control Commission (DNCG) on Thursday August 17 and was validated by the LFP (Professional Football League). The FFF will decide in the next few hours, ”details the press release.
READ ALSOFootball: FC Sochaux bailed out in extremis by a Peugeot heir “The new leaders will now work on setting up their project, with the priority of building a competitive sports team in order to do well in the National Championship, the first meeting of which for the FCSM is set for Friday 25 August on the lawn of Red Star FC”, added FC Sochaux-Montbéliard in its press release.
“The objective, not to go down”
Jean-Claude Plessis will take over the presidency of the club and Pierre Wantiez the general management, the latter revealed during a press video conference in the afternoon.
“The problem, it starts tomorrow, tempered Jean-Claude Plessis. It was almost the fight of my life. It’s not won yet, we don’t have a team, we’ll have to make the team […] The objective is not to go down, and to go up next season. »
Ninth in Ligue 2 last season, the almost century-old club had been abandoned by its owner, the Chinese real estate group Nenking, in great financial difficulty.
READ ALSO“We wonder where the end of the tunnel is”, the descent into hell of FC SochauxIn July, a project led by Romain Peugeot, great-grandson of the club’s founder, was then born to try to keep the Cubs in Ligue 2. In vain, the file did not convince the executive committee of the French Football Federation (FFF), the French National Olympic and Sports Committee (CNOSF) and the Administrative Court of Paris.
It was then the club’s former president Jean-Claude Plessis, at the helm from 1999 to 2008, and Pierre Wantiez, who had returned expressly from Le Havre AC, who took up the torch, initially managing to find a sales agreement with Nenking before convincing the DNCG.
“We had a very good file, well balanced, with investors from Franche-Comté, people from our region, declared Jean-Claude Plessis. I think it was a very appreciated thing. […] The world of football wanted us to get out of this. »
