FC Nantes has been indicted as part of a vast investigation opened into suspicious transfers of players, for complicity in a certain number of irregularities committed by sports agents, we learned on Friday, November 24 from from the Rennes public prosecutor’s office.
The football club was indicted on September 21 as a legal entity represented by its president, Waldemar Kita, Rennes public prosecutor Philippe Astruc told Agence France-Presse (AFP), confirming a information from the Ouest-France newspaper.
Owner of FC Nantes since 2007, Waldemar Kita was taken into police custody at the end of June, as well as his son, Franck Kita, deputy general director of the club, and two other people. The president of the club was released without prosecution at the time but his son and the two other people were indicted, in particular for money laundering, aggravated money laundering, laundering of tax fraud and exercise of the activity of sports agent without a valid license .
Waldemar Kita “vigorously contests the alleged facts”
According to the local press, in addition to Franck Kita, the two people indicted are Bakari Sanogo and Joaquim Batica, agents of certain Nantes players. FC Nantes was in turn indicted in September for acts that took place between January 2015 and July 2022, according to Philippe Astruc.
The club is thus suspected of having “been complicit in the offense of exercising the activity of a sports agent without a valid license, its governing bodies giving instructions to commit the offense”, in particular “by having false contracts drawn up scouting and erroneous mentions on player contracts aimed at remunerating the services of sports agents that they knew were illegal,” explains the prosecutor.
He is also accused of having, “in Nantes, Reims, on national, Malian and Luxembourg territory”, participated in the concealment or conversion of the proceeds of a crime or offence, in this case “illegal exercise of sports agent activity” in an organized gang.
Waldemar Kita “vigorously contests the alleged facts” and has highlighted a certain “ethics” of the “world of pharmacy” from which he comes, specifies the Rennes prosecutor, where the procedure is centralized.