Ex-Coach Rolland Courbis gets jail time, owner Robert Louis-Dreyfus gets probation…

By: Magnusson | October 19th, 2007

The affair of the Marseille transfers was a big tabou among the fans, the staff and administration in the Marseille organization. For the past few years, The principal share holder and the ex-coach have been under scrutiny from the media and prosecuted as well as ten other club officials from the 1997-1999 era.
During that two year period, it is believed that as many as fifteen tranfers were handled with -to say the least- very questionnable methods. And those tranfers include such high profile players as Christophe Dugarry, Laurent Blanc and Fabrizio Ravanelli. It is highly believed that Robert Louis-Dreyfus -who was the just freshly arrived new owner of the club- was abused into putting out insane amounts of cash (nearly 22 million euros) to get top-rated players while Roland Courbis allegedly used his connections as an ex-agent to some players to get a cut from those tranfers.
Now, Courbis came out and declared he was happy he only got 2 years (which means a year of jail and a year of probation) and an additionnal fine of 375.000 euros. He is actually weighing his options, pondering if he’s going to appeal the decision or not. Considering the district attorney of Aix-La-Provence Mr Marc Cinnamonti was asking for a LOT more, this comes as a slap on the wrist for him.
It has been revealed yesterday morning that his mea-culpa last june when he did take the blame and recognized that he “unknowingly may have helped with the embezzlement” by being too eager to help get Marseille back on the top, and that he didn’t really check the different contracts and thought the cuts he got were from his position as agent or mediator in three of those tranfers..
What’s funny is how everybody at Marseille seems to not care about this situation, supporters having wildly said in a poll that they would love to see the Marseille native and youth club product to come back and coach us again. Robert Louis-Dreyfus himself didn’t seem too angry at Courbis the last time the two gentlement met. But RLD apparently is furious he got any probation at all. Seen as he went with the “I’m so rich I don’t care where my millions go” defense and the fact that it has been proven over and over again that his detachement from the club and his newness to the football-business is the reason people took advantage of his naiveté. The district attorney said that if it was up to him, the staff from Barcelona and Everton would have been indicted as well. He declared that it was his firm belief that RLD was well aware tht he was paying more money than necessary to get superstars just because of his megalomania.
In China for the moment in Business, the owner of the club did not comment on the decision and neither did the President, Pape Diouf (who is recovering from a succesfull back surgery for those of you wondering).
Robert Louis-Dreyfus, who just took control of the lionshare (14 billion euros) of his family’s businesses would like nothing more than to get rid of the club. He said it before and his friend Louis Acariès told the press the club was still for sale.

Let’s just hope the dark days of the Marseille accounts are over and that we will be able to keep them clean as they have been since Pape Diouf came aboard.