Bastia midfielder Julien Maggiotti, victim of an incredible winter transfer scam | OneFootball

News of Julien Maggiotti’s (29) departure from SC Bastia during the winter transfer was nothing more than an elaborate scam.

The former Stade Lavallois midfielder went to Bastia training centre on Monday morning, the day of the transfer deadline. That’s when he got word that an agreement between his team and Eintracht Brunswick was reached. Maggiotti told L’Équipe it happened so quickly that he barely had time to tell his family that he was leaving.

He had a mere half hour to search Google Maps for the location of Eintracht Brunswick and their current standing in Bundesliga 2. A startling discovery was made by his agent though.

“We’re on the way between Orly and Roissy with my agent, and there we realise it’s wrong. What you need to know is that everything is done in a few hours. My agent, through one of his contacts in Germany, had done more research and understood that the Eintracht Brunswick were never interested and that this thing is totally wrong,” says Maggiotti.

Reports indicate that a man presenting himself as Benjamin Kessel, the footballing director at Brunswick, has been increasing his contacts in France for several weeks. He had a German number and the face of the real Benjamin Kessel appeared on that WhatsApp profile. The offers that L’Équipe could consult include a logo, address and the actual registration number of the Eintracht Brunswick football club. They all had the signature of Kessell.

As a result, everything appeared to be normal on paper, but merely on paper. This phony footballing director, however, reportedly mentioned a medical check-up which would have to be financed up to a sum of €10,000. That’s apparently because the club didn’t have any agreement this winter with local hospitals.

The scam at Bastia was reportedly the same as it was with those other Ligue 2 clubs. Maggiotti returned to the Bastia locker room the following day and commented: “I told them that it could happen to everyone and that we had to go beyond that.”

According to the German publication Bild, the Brunswick club had filed a complaint when they heard how their image was being used.

GFFN | Joel Lefevre