Sporting Bastia returns to the professional world. Four years after a bankruptcy filing which had sent him to the 5th division, the Corsican club, a historic formation of French football, will return to Ligue 2 next season after securing one of the first two places in the National on Wednesday. "We toiled ... We suffered ... BUT WE DID IT!" Four years after the sporting, economic and social disaster, we are back in the professional world! WE ARE BACK, WE ARE IN LEAGUE 2 ", reacted the club, in Corsican language, on its Twitter account. “Congratulations! Forza Bastia! ”, For his part greeted the French world champion Florian Thauvin, who had revealed himself under the colors of the club between 2011 and 2013.
Emu straziatu ... emu suffertu ... MA L'EMU FATTU!
⚪️
4 anni dopu at a catastrophesofa spurtiva, ecunumica è suciale, ritruvemu u mondu prufessiunale!
SIMU DI RITORNU, SIMU IN LEGA 2!
⚽️ # ÙnHèSpentaAFiammapic.twitter.com / yHV8gnFkcQ
- SC Bastia (@SCBastia) April 28, 2021
Bastia had indeed left National 3, the 5th division of French football, after filing for bankruptcy in 2017. Since then, the club has experienced three consecutive climbs to find the elite. The last was ratified without playing Wednesday night, thanks to the victory of Villefranche-Beaujolais in Orléans (3-1) in a late match of the 31st day. Three days from the end, Bastia and Quevilly have 57 points, 11 more than Villefranche (3rd, 46 pts), who can no longer come back to the leading duo. Orleans is fourth (43 pts) and will fight for third place, giving access to a dam against the 18th in Ligue 2. This promotion marks the return to the fore of a club that has marked the history of French football, with its victory in the Coupe de France in 1981 and, perhaps above all, the epic thathad driven in 1978 to the final of the UEFA Cup, the former name of the Europa League, with Claude Papi, Charles Orlanducci or Johnny Rep.
The weight of supporters
Faced with enormous financial problems for several years and in suspension of payments in August 2017, the Bastia club, which employed 47 employees, was placed in liquidation in September 2017 by the Commercial Court of Bastia.
The Corsican club then posted a debt of 21 million euros at the end of the 2016-2017 season.
Sporting was taken over in August 2017 by two entrepreneurs from Bastia, Claude Ferrandi and Pierre-Noël Luiggi, who therefore allowed it to go up the slope.
In addition, in this crossing of the desert, SC Bastia was not abandoned by its supporters, now represented on the club's board of directors via an association of "socios".
Sta riesciuta hè anc'a vostra!
Grazie à tutti per u vostru sustegnu tamantu!
⏯ pic.twitter.com/lKrdgdI1iO
- SC Bastia (@SCBastia) April 29, 2021
In February 2020, more than 1,000 of them had made the trip to Sedan (north-eastern France) for a top match in National 2 (0-0). And last September, before the establishment of closed health conditions in the face of the pandemic, some 6,000 spectators attended a match between the SCB and Boulogne-sur-Mer in National. On Wednesday evening, several hundred of them gathered to celebrate the promotion in front of the Armand Cesari stadium, singing their pride and waving flags and smoke. In the streets of the city, the flags were also out in the middle of a parade of cars and the sound of horns. While there are three matches to go and before dreaming next season of the feat of a new promotion, this time to Ligue 1, the Bastiais still have one goal:the title of National champion.
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