Rugby: end of custody for Bernard Laporte and Mohed Altrad

The president of the French Rugby Federation (FFR) Bernard Laporte, businessman Mohed Altrad, owner of the Montpellier club, and three other people taken into custody Tuesday in Paris came out free on Wednesday evening after two days of hearings, we learned from their lawyers.

It is now up to the national financial prosecutor to decide on the follow-up to be given to this preliminary investigation opened in 2017 to examine in particular the links between Bernard Laporte and Mohed Altrad, owner of Montpellier Hérault Rugby (MHR) and jersey sponsor of the XV of France.

The two men were heard in the premises of the Brigade for the Repression of Economic Crime (BRDE) at the same time as Serge Simon, vice-president of the FFR, Nicolas Hourquet, responsible for international relations of the FFR, and Claude Atcher, director general of the organizing committee for the 2023 Rugby World Cup, scheduled for France.

The national financial prosecutor's office can now decide to continue its preliminary investigation, to open a judicial investigation entrusted to investigating judges, or to put an end to the investigations.

In this case, he can decide to close the case or to initiate proceedings directly. 

Laporte suspected of having favored Montpellier, the Altrad club 

Bernard Laporte, 56, denounced Tuesday a "revolting" judicial calendar in a letter addressed to the clubs, while he seeks his succession at the head of the FFR on October 3.

In this case, the boss of French rugby is suspected of having favored Montpellier (Top 14) by intervening with the FFR appeal committee to reduce sanctions against the club at the end of June 2017. is still defended, even if he admitted having telephoned the president of the commission, Jean-Daniel Simonet on June 30.

The sponsorship contract of the Altrad group, a specialist in building materials which has become the first jersey sponsor of the XV of France, was also discussed by the investigators, according to Serge Simon's lawyer, Me Pierre Blazy.

Another subject of interest of the financial police, according to Me Blazy: the support of the Altrad group for the French candidacy, ultimately victorious, for the organization of the 2023 World Cup, as the

mid-August

had written

.

According to

, Messrs Laporte, Atcher, Simon and Hourquet boarded the personal plane kindly loaned by Mohed Altrad, to support the French candidacy in Mongolia or Georgia, in May and June 2017.