Paris (AFP)
The president of the French Rugby Federation Bernard Laporte confirmed that the coach Fabien Galthié had left the health bubble of the XV of France to attend a match of his son, while retaining his support, Sunday evening on France 3.
The coach, suspected of having violated health protocol, is one of the sixteen members of the France team to have contracted Covid-19, which resulted in the postponement of the match of the Six Nations Tournament France-Scotland initially planned for this Sunday.
The day after the victory in Italy (50-10), Galthié went on February 7 to the Jean-Bouin stadium, in Paris, to attend a hopeful meeting between Colomiers, where his son Mathis, 19, is playing, and the French stadium.
"For me, he has the right from the moment he is masked. He was outside. I was told that he had watched the match next to Thomas Lombard (general manager of the Stade Français), who is him- even tested every three days and who wore the mask ", explained Laporte on the stage of Stade 2." I do not see where there would be a problem there. But again, I am not a doctor ", he added.
The president of the FFR also reaffirmed his support for Galthié.
"Why should I not support him? I am not a prosecutor. And it is not because I like Fabien very much. He knows very well that I would not give a gift to anyone," he said.
The FFR boss insisted that the players who went to eat waffles in Rome before the game against Italy "were retested on their way home".
Laporte also considered that Serge Simon, vice-president of the FFR and "covid manager" of the Blues, was "not in check".
"We live inside this XV of France what a lot of people experience in society. We have a cluster that has returned, it is obvious. Serge Simon applies what we are told to do", he added.
While Sports Minister Roxana Maracineanu called for an internal investigation by the FFR to shed light on this cluster, a report carried out in collaboration with the federation's medical commission is due "Tuesday", Laporte said.
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