Tunisian football club forced to shut due to lack of players after 32 of their squad illegally emigrated to Europe

A fourth-tier Tunisian football club has found itself without a squad after 32 players illegally emigrated to Europe.

Ghardimaou announced that they were forced to cease all activities and suspend their involvement in any tournaments and future matches.

The club’s president, Jamil Meftahi, blamed the lack of players on emigration, saying that 32 players over the past three years had headed for Europe due to the economic crisis in Tunisia.

Mr. Meftahi said the players left for Europe due to a ‘lack of financial means’ and admitted the club was not able to pay the players.

‘We’ve halted activities and suspended our matches,’ the fourth-division Ghardimaou club’s president Jamil Meftahi said, blaming ‘clandestine emigration’.

He said, over the past three years, 32 of the club’s players have emigrated to Europe.

Tunisia is in the grip of a long, worsening economic crisis that has pushed many of its citizens to take desperate measures in search of better lives abroad.

The Ghardimaou players, aged between 17 and 22, ‘either left by sea or went via Serbia then illegally crossed the border into other countries’, Meftahi said.

Until November last year, Tunisians had been able to travel to Serbia without a visa, giving thousands of people an alternative to potentially deadly boat crossings in the Central Mediterranean, the world’s deadliest migration route.

Those heading for the exit have disproportionately come from marginalised areas such as Ghardimaou, an inland rural district near the Algerian border but far from Tunisia’s coastal economic hubs.

Meftahi blamed players’ ‘lack of financial means’ for their departures.

‘We can’t afford equipment, shirts or shoes, and the players aren’t being paid,’ he said.