And many (if not all) condemned this in real time.

This is a case study in what happens when football is run like a shadow fund, not a civic institution.

the SAD still holds that license.
The long-overdue legal separation between SAD and club must finally happen, because the members deserve to start again.

Today, Boavista FC has no league, no money, and no peace.
But it still has people who care.
Member-owners are fighting to rebuild.
+

as unpaid debts and transfer bans stacked like dominos.

They didn't fail. They were failed.

Even when serious solutions were on the table, Gérard refused to release his equity stake.
He clung to control through the collapse, and even today, as Boavista drops into the non-professional leagues, +

The same Gérard who ran Lille, Bordeaux, and Mouscron into crisis, and now Boavista FC too.

For years, the SAD (the "Sports LLC") held the exclusive rights to field Boavista in senior men's competitions.
The club itself, owned by its members, was locked out of football, watching helplessly +

True, an utter shame.
But let's be precise: the shame is not Boavista FC, not the club, not the members, not the badge.
It's the privately held SAD (a "Sports LLC" called "Boavista FC, Futebol, SAD") and its absentee leadership, Gérard López, that drove this collapse. +