Ligue 1 side Bastia "reacted angrily" to reports that the sale of Ryad Boudebouz would be insufficient to see the decision to relegate the club to Ligue 2 on financial grounds reversed, according to Mark Baber of INSIDE WORLD FOOTBALL. France's Direction Nationale du Contrôle de Gestion (DNCG) declared that the Corsican club should be relegated to League 2, "irrespective of having finished 12th" in Ligue 1 last season. The DNCG, the organization responsible for monitoring and overseeing the accounts of professional clubs in France, "has decided to bar Bastia from Ligue 1" due to a €1.3M ($1.43M) hole in the club's finances. However, club management "has insisted the pending sale of Boudebouz to Montpellier" for €1.7M ($1.87M) will "put the club back on an even keel." Bastia Owner Pierre-Marie Geronimi has told supporters that the club "will be playing in Ligue 1 next season." However, French media have published reports from "unnamed sources" claiming debts of up to €10M ($11M) at the club, leading Bastia to issue a statement on its website, accusing the media of publishing details of "alleged debts" based on anonymous sources, "which do not take into account the accounting reality of SCB" (INSIDE WORLD FOOTBALL, 7/2).
