Saïd Chabane, the owner of the Angers SCO (Ligue 2) who was absent during the deliberations, was found guilty of sexual assault “committed by a person abusing the authority conferred on him by his position” on six women and is sentenced to two years in prison, one of which is suspended. He was acquitted with the “benefit of the doubt” for the facts concerning a seventh complainant.
Saïd Chabane’s lawyers immediately announced that they would appeal the conviction: “We welcome this decision with some relief since Mr. Chabane has been declared partially innocent of what he has been accused of for several years. Obviously, we do not agree with (the rest) of the decision and will appeal so that Mr. Chabane can be completely exonerated,” Mr. Pascal Rouiller told the press.
The prosecutor had requested three years in prison, one of which was suspended, citing during his requisitions the “intolerable gestures” described by the civil parties. During his trial, the former president of the Angers club denied the accusations of the seven complainants, former employees of the Angers SCO and its delicatessen company, who had recounted the “forced hugs” and the “touching of the buttocks and to the chest.”
His lawyers pleaded for acquittal
“It is a decision without surprise for the civil parties, in line with what was said at the hearing. The important thing for the complainants is that the truth is told and recognized,” reacted Me Céline Tavenard, lawyer for the civil party.
The first complaint was filed in January 2020 by an employee of the SCO of Angers, who denounced facts that occurred a few weeks earlier during a trip to Madrid in which several employees participated. Six other complaints were subsequently filed, for acts committed between 2014 and 2019.
On the first day of his trial, Saïd Chabane said he was “condemned” since his indictment in February 2020, denouncing a “presumption of innocence that has become insignificant”. “If you tell a lie to several people, does it become the truth? It scares me,” he declared. His lawyers had pleaded for acquittal.
In March 2023, Saïd Chabane left the presidency of SCO, then still in Ligue 1, to give the reins to his son, Romain, but remained the club’s main shareholder. A month later, he was placed in police custody in an organized gang money laundering case. He will be tried from March 25 to 29 before the Bobigny criminal court.
