Goal FC’s appeal to join the National rejected, despite Bordeaux’s relegation

Goal FC’s request to the Paris Administrative Court to join the National Football Championship (3rd division) has been rejected. Goal FC (Grand ouest association lyonnaise football club), 14th in the National at the end of the 2023-2024 season, was hoping to be drafted after Bordeaux was relegated to N2 for financial reasons.

Eighteen clubs would then have competed in this championship instead of seventeen, as will ultimately be the case. In a press release published late Friday afternoon, the Rhone club, one of the largest in France with 1,800 members, “took note of the decision of the Administrative Court which did not rule on its request, taking into account the fact that the championship began on August 17 except for Bordeaux, Villefranche-sur-Saône and Goal FC”.

Goal FC “also notes that the FFF executive committee did not consider it useful to examine its request despite unequal treatment by the DNCG (National Management Control Directorate) concerning the Niort and Bordeaux files which allowed Villefranche (13th last season, Editor’s note) to be re-selected but not Goal FC”.

The Lyon club, represented by the former Secretary of State for Sports Thierry Braillard, believes that “The FFF preferred a partial reading of the regulations to the values ​​of ethics and fairness which should have prevailed in this circumstance and defended at all costs a championship with 17 teams”The Goal FC players went on strike and forfeited the first day of the National 2 championship in Marignane on August 18. The Lyon team will play its first match on Saturday against Saint-Priest in its Ludovic Giuly stadium in Chasselay.