Former Stade Malherbe de Caen coach Franck Dumas was sentenced on appeal on January 25 to two years in prison, one of which was suspended for tax evasion. In this case, which has already been tried several times – in the penitentiaries, the administrative court, the Council of State – Franck Dumas, whose sentence cannot be changed because he lives abroad, and who is still liable for 139,579 euros, excluding fines therefore sentenced to one year in prison.
“Addicted to gambling and can’t pay taxes”
“Deliberate desire to evade his tax obligations, the failure to pay this debt for almost a decade, his being abroad, prohibiting any measure of enforcement” makes “imprisonment unavoidable,” we read in the decision of the court in an appeal consulted by AFP. In 2015, the Treasury claimed in respect of income tax for 2011 and 2012 a total amount of 535,472 euros from a former coach who was “addicted to games and unable to pay taxes”, according to his own statements in criminal court. .
“We’ll go to the checkout”
Around €300,000 was returned, but “never voluntarily”. Franck Dumas, who was absent from the hearing at first instance, disputes the taxable nature of the €430,000 transactional refund paid to SM Caen in 2012 when the club sacked him following his relegation to Ligue 2 on appeal,” said his lawyer, Philippe Weber. for which “the intent to deceive the tax authorities is not typical, there is no account abroad, the money is hidden in a safe.”
“My client believed that the settlement compensation was not taxable in the context of an unfair termination,” Me Weber said. Trained at Caen, the club where he discovered Ligue 1 (D1 at the time) in 1988 and where he was captain for a long time, Franck Dumas joined Monaco in 1992 at the request of Monaco’s then manager Arsène Wenger. In 1997, he became the champion of France together with Fabien Barthez or Thierry Henry.
He lives in the DRC
After a stay in Marseille and returning to Caen in 2001, he became a coach in 2005. Since 2012, he has continued his career mainly abroad, in particular due to problems with the tax authorities. However, on his advice, Franck Dumas has been looking for a contract since the end of his partnership in October 2022 with Tout Puissant Mazembe, based in Lubumbashi (Democratic Republic of the Congo), where he resides.
Source: Le Parisien
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