Bernard Laporte, February 2, 2020 at the Stade de France.
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John Spencer / SIPA
The 1900 club presidents will elect the new president of the French Rugby Federation by electronic vote.
Largely favorite to his own succession, Bernard Laporte saw his lead melt after a last week of incredible campaign.
The former coach of the Blues is convinced that he will still win against Florian Grill despite his legal troubles.
We don't really know when this campaign went downhill, but it was about time it ended, really.
Finally, especially for Bernard Laporte.
The outgoing president of the FFR, candidate for his re-election Saturday, sends waltz all the conveniences since his release from police custody.
As for journalists, "who should be fired" if the polls giving him a short-headed loser ultimately prove to be misleading, let's say we're used to it.
But even some of his most ardent supporters were hampered by his crocodile tears at Saint-Jean de Védas last week, and his violent rant against Florian Grill, his challenger: "I knew he was a coward. a field because I have friends who have played with him.
But there, it confirms his mentality.
He must quickly start from our sport ”.
🗣💬 "I said no to 5 million euros. And they're going to give me lessons? I don't want any more lessons."
🏉 Very touched after the end of his police custody, Bernard Laporte could not restrain his emotion and attacked Florian Grill: "We must leave our sport!"
pic.twitter.com/dgel6xlQmJ
- RMC Sport (@RMCsport) September 24, 2020
Bernard Laporte's excesses
Report to an interview with Grill published in Le Figaro the very morning of the surprise hearing of Bernard Laporte at the headquarters of the Brigade for the repression of economic delinquency (BRDE), as if the president of the Ile de France League was leading both the media and legal agenda from its evil dungeon.
“It was a criticism of the timing but the police did their job and they came out free, assesses a supporter of the former coach.
There was no point in spreading out ”.
Nor to imply with the discretion of a herd of elephants that it was a plot hatched by the League and the opposition: Laporte had known since the summer his convocation date, initially scheduled before the Covid.
In the Grill camp, we put this aggressiveness down to the start of panic.
“He attacked Florian because he feels the election is slipping away from him.
It is not for nothing that he refused to postpone the elections ”.
In an interview he gave us in mid-September, the person already swore to feel the tide turning in his favor.
“Every time we saw people, we convinced them.
It will be very tight, no offense to all the means deployed against us and the promises multiplied everywhere ”.
The latest controversies seem rather to have frozen positions.
During the last Laporte meetings this week, many club presidents spontaneously spoke to assure "Bernie" of their voices despite his setbacks, while others tackled both camps, exasperated by the climate of the campaign. .
Presentation of my XV commitments for the future of French rugby.
Go to my page 👉https: //t.co/LHMzNGGmZB pic.twitter.com/RQPHFW829I
- Bernard Laporte (@BernardLaporte_) August 22, 2020
The amateur world satisfied with the action of the FFR?
Seen from the outside, it is quite fascinating to see how the various “cases” which encumbered Bernard Laporte throughout his mandate seem to slide on his candidacy.
Small crisp detail at this stage of the story, the former Secretary of State for Sports refused all interviews with "negative" questions on the said affairs.
It must be said that there is enough to make a series on Canal, between the phone call to the Appeal Commission of the League to ease the sanctions of the Altrad club, at the origin of his police custody, the trips paid by this same Altrad to obtain the organization of the 2023 World Cup (also in the viewfinder of justice), the BMW of the Federation loaned without reason to a Toulon hope, or the brutal dismissal of Guy Novès in the outcome of a ghost audit.
Florian Grill, who has always refused to comment on the investigation targeting the president of the FFR, is on the other hand much more verbose on the Novès case, representative, according to him, of the financial mismanagement of the Fed over the last four years: “We has a governance which has succeeded in a deficit Grand Slam, since the FFR remains on four years of deficit of operations.
At some point, we will have to pay the painful, and the house of cards is already collapsing ”.
In particular, the explosion in the wage bill of the Federation and an uncontrolled exit from the road in 2020, in part caused by the Covid crisis.
In Marcoussis, we retort that we managed to bury the ruinous project of the Grand Stade, and that the money has finally been distributed to amateur rugby, since the latter did not see anything coming.
"We redistributed in four years 90 million euros more than the former term of office, whether on travel expenses, aid in arbitration, or various subsidies," explains a person close to power.
We have also created 162 Technical Adviser positions who will do audits in the clubs to help them function better, we had never seen that before!
So it costs money [14 million a year], but it changes their lives.
Grill has been in systematic opposition for two years, starting wild fires.
It is not only bad guys who manage the FFR, we must stop the caricature.
We can denounce inconsistencies, but he was a hell of a blaster!
".
"Grill was a hell of a blaster"
The latter, however, voted for the exceptional aid plan of 35 million euros designed by the FFR - and partly taken from the insurance fund for seriously injured - to stop the losses of amateur clubs and allow the return to practice. as calmly as possible.
And one can hardly blame him for having blown on the first embers.
We come back to the famous “Florian Grill, no one knows him except his mother so who cares!
»Asserted by Bernard Laporte in June 2019, at the time of the declaration of candidacy of this 55-year-old entrepreneur, a graduate of HEC Paris and important member of the Camou list, in 2016.
It is besides a reproach which pursues the former Puciste.
Wanting to do something new with old, by recycling Blanco or Skrela, which are not really partridges of the year.
Lièvremont thought about going there for a while, he who embodied a form of natural legitimacy, but he didn't think about it enough when shaving.
Very proud of the support of "let's renovate French sport" for the FFR campaign!
https://t.co/czrBsjrDrP
- florian grill (@floriangrill) September 29, 2020
During the last month of the campaign, Laporte focused on portraying Grill as an ally of the League and professional rugby, against the interests of amateur rugby.
The president of the Federation has chosen his camp for a long time.
If he did not manage to parade with the head of Paul Goze on a spade, he made a point of "putting the Fed in its place", the boot firmly installed on the chinstrap of the NRL.
Avenue de Villiers, we did not digest the attitude of the Laporte-Simon duo during the conciliation meeting aimed at bringing together the antagonistic positions on the autumn tour, to the point of attacking the Fed in court.
“It was never a question of negotiating for them.
We had the feeling of a real breakthrough, of a form of contempt for pro rugby ”.
“False, there was a lot of flexibility in our speech, corrects a member of the steering committee.
There was no problem to free the foreign internationals, but when it is the XV of France, one wonders if the League pulls in the same direction ”.
Galthié's misplaced pressure
To believe that the LNR would make Laporte pay in advance its last warning: not a kopeck for the clubs on the receipts of the World Cup of 2023, "entirely transferred to amateur rugby".
France 2023 is Laporte's master trump card, his greatest achievement, since he had given of himself to snatch victory from South Africa, announced as favorite.
So the FFR capitalizes at best, with the launch of the World Cup train, which has already stopped in several major cities in September.
As it capitalizes on the recovery of the France team, at least on the image.
On this point, the pressure from Fabien Galthié, who more or less linked his fate to that of Laporte, will have escaped no one, let alone Grill.
"When the president of the FFR, on a subject as symbolic as the France team, finds a way to play politics, because we know where this intervention of the coach comes from, it is not part of my conception of sport ”.
5 days before the vote, Laporte "certain" to have won the FFR elections via @ 20minutesSport https://t.co/8TjMwQaaEL
- 20 Minutes Sport (@ 20minutesSport) September 29, 2020
Speaking of politics, the opposition gently distils doubt wherever it goes: "Be careful, voting Laporte is voting Simon".
Many indeed lend the intention to the boss of the FFR to make a career in World Rugby by leaving the federal ship in the hands of his second Serge Simon, without going through the election box.
Let us give thanks to Laporte for that.
It was he who put an end to the medieval electoral system whose rules still dominated in 2016, with vote-bearers who come to emerge for the entire department with 50 ballots each.
From now on, electronic voting is compulsory and electoral stuff is prohibited.
“We must at least recognize this courage in Laporte, breaths one of his friends.
If he had not passed this reform, his re-election would have been settled as before, without the slightest uncertainty.
Grill would not even have made 20% ”.
100% transparent electronic voting
The Ovale Ensemble candidate will do much more.
He even promises that according to his last scores, he is in front, which makes Marcoussis smile kindly.
“It is time to go to the polls, to make things clear for everyone.
We cannot say that we have already won, but we are confident ”.
And smart, as evidenced by this little email sent to the media a few hours before the start of the votes to welcome an increase in licensees in 2020 after years of lean cowardice.
There is never a small profit so close to an election.
In addition to this, you will need to know more about it.
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LNR
XV of France
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Fabien Galthie
Bernard Laporte