Crystal Palace striker Jean-Philippe Mateta has been locked in a five-year legal battle with his former agent over unpaid transfer fees.

L’Equipe reveal the long, ongoing battle between the Crystal Palace striker today. Mateta’s former agent is demanding over half a million Euros from his former client.

The newspaper explains that, for the past five years, Mateta has been locked in a legal battle with his former lawyer, Pierre-Henri Bovis. The latter is claiming €540,000 in legal fees.

L’Equipe state that it is a ‘typical dispute over a change of legal counsel’. The lawyer, meanwhile, claims that the Crystal Palace man “keeps initiating legal proceedings to avoid paying”. The player, on the other hand, insists that the agent keeps filing “baseless legal actions”.

The issue stems from a contract extension Mateta signed at Mainz in June 2019. Bovis led those negotiations with the German club. He was reportedly not paid at the time. Instead, compensation was contingent upon a future transfer according to a source close to the case.

Crystal Palace move

However, the striker parted ways with Bovis in July 2020. Bovis then never received a payment from Mateta when he joined Crystal Palace in 2021. That was initially a loan deal that was made permanent a year later.

Bovis maintains that Mateta owes him €540,000. That represents the 10% he believes that he is entitled to as part of the transfer to Crystal Palace. He has made several formal notices and has referred the matter to the Paris Bar Association’s *bâtonnier* (head of the local bar). They ordered that the bill be paid.

That decision was overturned by the Paris Court of Appeal in 2023. They instead ruled that the validity of the mandate had to be examined first.

Dispute

The Crystal Palace striker disputes the claim. His lawyers argue that the document was signed on July 27, 2019, rather than January 27—a detail that would change everything.

Bovis, though, insists that he forwards the document to the French Football Federation as early as February 2019.

Mateta also filed a criminal complaint for forgery—which was subsequently dismissed—before lodging a formal complaint as a partie civile (an injured party seeking criminal prosecution), a move that triggered a judicial investigation now nearing its conclusion.

The issues between the pair don’t stop there. There is also a dispute over Mateta’s Parisian apartment. There is no indication that the five-year long dispute is anywhere near being concluded.