Paris (AFP)

Candidate declared president of the FFR on October 3, facing the outgoing Bernard Laporte, Florian Grill, who deplores the loss of "54,000 licensees" believes that the French rugby federation must stop the decline and "invest in the recovery of licensees" , he told AFP.

Supported by former internationals Serge Blanco, Fabien Pelous, Abdelatif Benazzi, Jean-Claude Skrela or Jean-Marc Lhermet, Grill, 54, invites his opponent to a "public and live debate".

. "The bunny and the turtle"

His competitor waited until the last moment, revealing himself Tuesday, less than three months from the elections. Florian Grill, it had launched more than a year ago. "It is the hare and the turtle, we will see who wins in the end," he joked with AFP.

"We did the opposite of what is usual: we started by working on a project between January and June 2019. We didn't want to make a punch campaign, we wanted to do a debate campaign ... In all our meetings, we ask questions and answers. It's easy to rest behind a PowerPoint, a film, to occupy the space ... We let people ask their questions and we "It feeds. We have never done such an audit in French rugby," he said.

. "An unprecedented bleeding"

His vision of rugby is radically opposed to that of Laporte: "the federal strategy is not (centered) on the base but on the Club World Cup, the creation of a third professional division, on the money which we say qu 'it will' drip '... ", considers the candidate Grill, who points to" the drop in licensees ".

"Bernard Laporte does not want to face reality, but it is obvious: we lost 54,000 licensees. An unprecedented bleeding. We have junior teams which come together at five to make a team. The decline in rugby schools, that's 26%. A quarter of the workforce has been lost. Why? There have been accidents that have hurt rugby, the results of the French team that have not helped ... ", tance l opponent.

. "Communicate, train, invest"

For Florian Grill, it is therefore necessary to start by solidifying the base of the pyramid. "We must first communicate to reassure parents: we all have examples of parents who feel that it could be violent. While rugby from rugby schools is not the Top 14, it has nothing to see, "he explains.

"Second axis, it is necessary to invest in school. We were cut croupiers by other sports while rugby was born at school, it is educational in essence. Its vocation is to help children to to become men, adolescents to become adults ... We devote less than 0.5% of the federation's budget to schooling. There are 13 million students, that's where we have to go to find the licensees , in schools but also in academia, "he added.

For the candidate, it is also necessary to invest in the training of educators, to build loyalty thanks to better supervision. "The work is phenomenal: 70% of the 30,000 educators are not trained," he explains.

"The priority is therefore to train them to improve the average duration of a FFR license. A practitioner is two years and three months on average. In football, it is four. 'at three years, by better quality of supervision, we would gain 25% of licensees ", he says.

. "Not credible"

Because, according to him, winning licensees is also helping clubs. "Losing licensees represents a shortfall of 22 million for clubs," he said.

The entrepreneur assures him, the finances of the FFR are not as "solid" as Bernard Laporte asserts. "They tell us that they will make a loss of 7.7 million. A month later, magic! The loss goes to zero. And there we are announced for the coming season 5.6 million deficit but having inflated revenues of ten million euros. We are told more revenue from ticket sales, TV rights and partners ... in the post-Covid year. Who can believe that there will be ten million more revenue? 10 million are not credible ", denounces the candidate.

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