Trial of fake sports agents: two-year suspended prison sentence for John Valovic-Galtier, 30,000 euro fine for Damien Comolli

Damien Comolli, président du Toulouse FC, a été condamné à 30 000 euros d'amendes pour un transfert jugé irrégulier.. MAXPPP – LAURENT DARD

The Marseille Criminal Court found all the defendants guilty of organized fraud and illegal practice of the profession of agent. Christophe Galtier's son received a suspended sentence and the president of Toulouse FC was fined.

In the commissions case, heard at the end of October, the Marseille Criminal Court found all the defendants guilty, agents, more or less declared intermediaries and managers, and sentenced them to various sentences, up to or above the prosecution's demands.

John Valovic-Galtier, the adopted son of former Paris SG coach Christophe Galtier, was sentenced Monday to a two-year suspended prison sentence and a €300,000 fine for organized fraud, illegally practicing the profession of sports agent and money laundering.

“A certain bad faith”

He appeared alongside seven other French football figures, including Toulouse (L1) president Damien Comolli, who was fined €30,000 for an irregular transfer contract.

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The eight defendants were sentenced for having circumvented, “with a certain bad faith” the court notes, the law governing the activity of sports agent. The disputed transfer contracts submitted to the judges for review had shown that the negotiations between the interested parties had been conducted by professionals who did not hold a sports agent card.

Agents inactive in the negotiations

David Venditelli, head of the Lyon company Score Agencies, was thus sentenced to one year in prison, suspended, and a fine of 200,000 euros, and one of the employees, sports advisor Jérémie Sutter, to one year in prison, suspended, and a fine of 100,000 euros.

This company, as well as the one created by John Valovic-Galtier, Player Agency, were based, according to the court, on the same irregular model: on the one hand, an advisor who did not hold a professional card carried out the procedures leading to the conclusion of a transfer contract thanks to his network or his professional experience, on the other, official players' agents who were “inactive” in the negotiations and only intervened when the transfer was signed.

Misuse of the system

This model had notably been put in place in the transfers of Christophe Galtier and Jordan Galtier, brother of John Valovic-Galtier. This scheme is illegal in the eyes of the court for which “prospecting, making contact, negotiations and this up to the contract are the monopoly of the licensed agents”.

Described by the prosecutor as'”front agents” and “nominees”, three official agents were sentenced: Alexandre Bonnefond to one year in prison suspended and 50,000 euros, Tristan Sauzon to six months suspended and 5,000 euros fine and David Wantier to three months in prison suspended and 5,000 euros fine.

The Dijon General Manager sentenced

The first two are also banned from professional practice, for five years and one year respectively. Emmanuel Desplats, General Manager of Dijon (National), is sentenced to a fine of 10,000 euros.

As civil parties, the League (LFP) and the French Federation (FFF) are awarded a symbolic euro in compensation for their moral prejudice, “these offences having the effect of betraying the trust that these regulatory bodies place in sports agents”.