In office since the end of 2016, Bernard Laporte was found guilty, Tuesday, December 13, of five of the six offenses for which he was prosecuted, including “passive corruption and influence traffic”.
MO12345lemonde with AFP
Bernard Laporte will he still be stationed at the kick-off of France-New Zealand, a start-up gala of the 2023 World Cup? The ethics committee of the French Rugby Federation (FFR) asked the former minister on Friday to leave his functions as president, after his conviction for his involvement in a “corruption pact” linked to sponsorship of the XV jersey France.
Information, revealed by the daily L’Equipe, has since been confirmed to the Agency France-Presse (AFP) by sources who are aware of the file. According to the Team, if this injunction to resign was not followed, the disciplinary committee of the federation could be seized.
Bernard Laporte and the businessman Mohed Altrad, president of the Montpellier club (South), were sentenced Tuesday, December 13 by the Paris Criminal Court. Meeting the day after the conviction of the president of the FFR, which appealed, the ethics committee sent a letter of several pages to Bernard Laporte, but also to the Ministry of Sports, explained a source to AFP.
This committee, according to the FFR regulations, is “endowed with an independent assessment power” and he “is empowered to seize the competent disciplinary bodies and responsible for ensuring the application of the Ethics Charter And ethics of rugby and respect for the rules of ethics, ethics, prevention and treatment of conflicts of interest “.
towards new elections to the FFR?
In office since the end of 2016, Bernard Laporte, 58, was re -elected president of the FFR in 2020 for a four -year term. He was found guilty of five of the six offenses for which he was prosecuted, including “passive corruption and influence traffic”.
Since he appealed the decision, his suspended prison sentence, as well as the prohibition to exercise the activity of president of the FFR for a period of two years, are not immediately enforceable.
In the hours following the judgment, the Minister of Sports, Amélie Oudéa-Castera, had called for “a new democratic time to allow as quickly as possible to French rugby to start on sufficiently healthy and solid bases”.
A little later, Bernard Laporte had retired “temporarily and voluntarily” from his duties as vice-president of World Rugby, the governing body of world rugby, but not from the presidency of the FFR. Thursday, it is the National Rugby League (LNR), in charge of professional rugby in France, which claimed “new elections” “in the face of this unprecedented situation”.