777 Partners-owned club Standard de Liège was hit with a transfer ban for the second time in 2023 by the Belgian FA this week after failing to pay transfer fees, bonuses, VAT and social insurance contributions.
By Philippe Auclair and Paul Brown
The US investment fund is also threatened with losing its shares in Genoa CFC after an independent arbitrator ruled in favour of the Italian club's former owner in a two-year long dispute.
At which point will the Belgian Commission des licences finally lose patience with Standard and 777 Partners? The iconic Liège club had already been served with a transfer ban in June of this year for not complying with its obligations towards the Belgian National Office for Social Security (ONSS), a ban which was lifted after Standard belatedly paid its contributions.
It was worse this time round. As shown in the document reproduced below, not only had Standard been unable to produce proof it had paid its social insurance contributions for the month of November, but it had also failed to pay its VAT bill, match bonuses to players, debt instalments to the Belgian FA and the ACFF (the body which represents clubs from French-speaking Belgium) and undisclosed sums due as part of the transfers of Moroccan winger Ilyes Ziani from Union Saint Gilloise and Norwegian international Aron Dønnum from Vålerenga.
This was all the more surprising that Ziani, who's yet to play for the first team, had only cost 200,000 euro and that Dønnum, who'd been bought by the pr...
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