An overwhelming audit report and the opening of a preliminary investigation for “moral and sexual harassment” had made the position of the boss of French football. Between litany of scandals and undeniable sporting and economic successes, return to almost twelve years of an uninvaded power.
by Rémi Dupré
In the light of his extended CV and his service states in the mysteries of French football, Noël Le Graët would certainly have preferred to leave the scene otherwise. In a vice, after a political-judicial saga of several months, the president of the French Football Federation (FFF), 81, resolved to announce his resignation, Tuesday, February 28, during a meeting At the top of the executive committee of the “3F”.
This abdication seemed inevitable. It occurs fifteen days after the Minister of Sports, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, an audit report overwhelming by the General Education, Sport and Research Inspectorate (IGESR). The conclusions of the inspectors were final: “NLG” no longer “has” the legitimacy necessary to administer and represent “French football. In question: a “very centralized power exercise”, “excessive consumption of alcohol”, “media slippages”, “inappropriate behavior towards women” and “the failures of FFF governance” .
Coupled with the allegations of the director general, Florence Hardouin, against her hierarchical superior, the opening by the Paris prosecutor’s office, on February 16, of a preliminary investigation against Mr. Le Graët for “moral harassment and sexual “following a report of the Igesr was a moment of rocking.
Within the FFF executive committee, many elected officials estimated that the patriarch, clinging to the bar despite the tornado and practicing the “burnt earth policy”, risked “ransacking and trampling everything what he built “. If this end of the sulphurous kingdom has tarnished the “work” of Breton, the presidency Le Graët will have coincided with a long series of undeniable sporting and economic successes.
Handle entrepreneur and paternalistic manager
Even the Igesr recognized it in its report: for the microcosm of the round ball, he “remains the man who saved the federation and knew how to modernize it” after the tragicomic episode of the bus strike KNYSNA, during the 2010 South African World Cup, and the explosive case of the quotas of spring 2011.
“Mr. Le Graët was clearly, for years, a good president: he has made things happen, especially in terms of financial recovery, development of female practice [the number of licensees has exploded and passed the Bar of 200,000] “, admitted, in a sour tone, M me oudéa-Castera, on February 15, at the end of his long showdown with the octogenarian.
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