Youcef Belaïli case: Ajaccio sounds the alarm and appeals to FIFA | OneFootball

Youcef Belaïli case: AC Ajaccio publishes a letter to FIFA

Youcef Belaïli case: Ajaccio sounds the alarm and appeals to FIFA

The Corsican club, already administratively relegated down to the amateur ranks for the 2025-2026 season, claims it is being strangled by a federal sanction that prohibits the issuance of any licenses. In an open letter addressed to Gianni Infantino, AC Ajaccio describes an “absurd and profoundly unfair situation” that threatens the club’s very survival. Amid financial crisis and a dramatic fall from Ligue 2 to Regional 2, the new management, appointed in September 2025, says it is hamstrung by procedural delays that have frozen its revival project.

The heart of the dispute: a contested agreement

At the center of the conflict lies the Youcef Belaïli affair. The club recalls that in April 2023, the Court of Arbitration for Sport ordered the player to pay €380,000 to Al-Ahli. However, in 2024, Belaïli demanded this amount from ACA before FIFA, producing a “settlement agreement” allegedly signed by former managing director Alain Caldarella and Al-Ahli. The problem: Al-Ahli denies the document’s existence, Caldarella insists he never signed anything, and no trace of such an agreement appears in the original ruling. According to Ajaccio, FIFA’s July 11, 2025, decision, based on this document, has upheld a transfer ban that has plunged the club “into a state of clinical death.”

Legal counterattack and call for arbitration

The Ajaccio board has filed a complaint for forgery, use of forged documents, and fraud with the Ajaccio public prosecutor, while requesting the immediate lifting of the sanction to safeguard jobs, the academy, and the social fabric. With local figures (Benjamin André, Rémy Cabella, Andy Delort) ready to support the club’s rebuilding, ACA is now urgently seeking FIFA’s intervention to review the case based on authenticated documents and to prevent a century-old club from disappearing over a paperwork technicality.