Frédéric Thiriez au poil -

CHRISTOPHE SAIDI / SIPA

  • Frédéric Thiriez is a candidate to succeed Noël Le Graët at the head of the FFF.

  • The former boss of the LFP is often mocked for his appearance and criticized because of the Luzenac case.

  • Lawyer at the court of cassation, author of a report on the reform of the ENA and 30 years in French football, Thiriez is nevertheless a character that matters.

At 68, Frédéric Thiriez has not found the secret of immortality, but he is working on it.

“Life is extremely short.

And the best way to lengthen it is to have several at the same time.

“Embracing the many facets of the candidate for the presidency of the FFF in three quarters of an hour of interview is a challenge almost as difficult as stealing the throne of Noël Le Graët, but the game is worth the candle.

We still have to accept to look beyond this imposing mustache, a pillar of a singular allure that some associate with a form of snobbery towards the common people.

Its supporters swear, however, that it is quite the opposite.

“On the pitch, I felt people surprised, like everyone who meets him for the first time,” says Sébé Coulibaly, Malian international and D2 player in Izeure, who is on the Thiriez list.

He does not reflect the image we have of him on TV.

Sometimes I feel like filming it for 24 hours so the world can see how much it doesn't take its toll.

"

We must admit that the former boss of the LFP seemed very nice to us when he arrived alone in our premises with a motorcycle helmet in hand, trying to get a little coffee.

"30 cents?

A priori, it's within my means, ”he jokes after a fist check in greeting.

Mistrust all the same, nothing tells us that Mr Thiriez did not play a role there: the theater is one of the many strings to his bow.

Raphaël Mezrahi knows something about it for having played it for a long time in one of his pieces, even if the interested party confides to having given up the boards a little recently, for lack of time.

“But I do opera, it's a bit between song and theater.

My mother was a singer so I must have that in my mind.

"

An enarque to the rescue of amateur football

The candidate for the succession of Le Graët may well make amateur football his war horse, he does not deny his social origins, considering himself "lucky", which often happens when growing up in the 7th arrondissement, is educated at the Stanislas high school and that one accesses the ENA, on which Thiriez moreover made a report in early 2020 responding to Emmanuel Macron's desire to reform the institution.

He is also pleased to note that the President of the Republic has taken into consideration one of the 43 measures of the said report.

In this case, "democratize access to the grandes écoles of the public service, create preparatory classes" equal opportunities "throughout the territory, training the brightest of our young scholarship holders for the preparation for the various administrative competitions, the ENA and other schools.

"

A wishful thinking that suggests a man's interest in what can happen at the bottom of the ladder, even if it is undoubtedly a little fair to weaken the demagogic lawsuit brought by the opposition on the question of amateur football .

As a good soldier, Deschamps himself attacked Le Graët's number 1 challenger, an intervention followed by a courteous explanation between two men "with old ties" dixit Thiriez, who took the opportunity to boast of 'have been the first to suggest DD at the head of the Blues.

“In 2008, after the calamitous Euro, it was obviously necessary to change coach.

I went to see Didier who told me yes.

It really interested him.

I went to see the president of the Fédé at the time, they didn't want to and renewed Raymond [Domenech] in October 2008. At the time, Noël Le Graët was vice-president of the Federation, already very influential , and he voted to renew Domenech.

And I think, maybe I'm presumptuous, that if they had followed me and had put Deschamps in 2008, we wouldn't have had Knysna.

I don't care about my ticket.

"

Mediapro?

"It was economically unfeasible"

An ironic interventionism.

Then president of the LFP, Thiriez will later reproach Le Graët for putting his nose a little too much in the business of professional football, which he nevertheless promises not to reproduce if he was elected.

“It's written in black and white in my profession of faith.

Respect for the autonomy of the League.

Football can only work well if the president of the Fédé and the League get along like thieves.

Luckily, Vincent Labrune is a friend.

"

Noël Le Graët has not always been an obstacle in the way of the lawyer to the court of cassation.

It is even NLG in person who is pushing to bring the legal man back to his side in the League in 1995 at a time when the judicialization of sport is embryonic.

The rest is known.

In 2002, ten years after his entry into the world of football via the door of the Federal Council of the 3F, Frédéric Thiriez was elected president of the LFP, where he distinguished himself by being disheveled by Ezequiel Lavezzi at each final of the Coupe de la League won by PSG, but also by tripling (approximately) the TV rights of L1 and L2.

A feat which naturally grants him the right to chamber his successors for the Mediapro blunder.

“Mediapro is a company that had a very bad reputation internationally, Italy had fired them and everyone knew it.

It is a Chinese shareholder, so if there is the slightest dispute, good luck in going to enforce a French court decision in China.

And then, the business plan as given by the boss of Mediapro himself did not hold water.

It was economically unfeasible.

AND finally, the presidents of member clubs of the League got rid of.

They were deceived.

"

Screen capture of the PSG title celebration ceremony on May 19, 2013 during which Ezequiel Lavezzi blows Frédéric Thiriez's hair.

- Screenshot / 20minutes

"Luzenac, Luzenac, Luzenac"

Black stones, there are also in the garden of the former boss of the LFP, and some could cost him dearly at the ballot box.

The first concerns his tumultuous relations with Bastia which in particular earned him to be accused of "anti-Corsican racist" by the former president of Sporting, Pierre-Marie Geronimi.

An escalation in three acts:

  • In 2012, he did not go to Corsica to hand over the Ligue 2 champion's trophy to the Bastiais.

  • In 2015, he did not descend on the lawn of the Stade de France on the occasion of the Coupe de la Ligue final to greet Parisians and Bastiais, for which he apologized three years later, regretting having listened to his entourage. to the LFP which had unanimously advised him against going on the field.

  • Finally, he never officially received the collective of victims of the Furiani disaster during his tenure, despite the latter's requests.

A hostile ground that Basile Boli, a longtime friend and member of the Thiriez list, strives to clear during the campaign, he whose displacement and speech are legitimized by his status as a witness to the drama of 1992.

"It's something that touched me in my career, I'm not ashamed to say it," said the Munich striker.

I had never experienced deaths on a football field.

It hurt me.

I am 100% in agreement that we make May 5 a day of commemoration, but it is up to the State and not Frédéric to decide.

"

The other ink spot in the candidate's file is called Luzenac, whose rise to Ligue 2 had been unanimously invalidated by the LFP Board of Directors, for lack of adequate infrastructure to access the professional world.

A decision considered legal and justified by the Council of State but which Thiriez continues to hear about.

“We made videos to explain it.

But it's normal that I am asked about it.

I put myself in the place of the supporters and the players of Luzenac, I would be disgusted.

But we should not be disgusted against the League which did its job, but against the leaders of the time.

Even in his camp, the question divides.

"Luzenac, I am fully behind them, I wrote a book on them where I wrote entire passages on what I thought about the League and the governance of football, comments Emmanuel Petit, also on the list of the ex-president of the LFP.

Frédéric knows what I think about it.

But the only argument we oppose is that.

'Luzenac, Luzenac, Luzenac ". Ok, but he did a lot of good things behind!"

Frédéric Thiriez polka dot jersey

Like the Fraternity expedition, of which the RMC Sport consultant was the sponsor.

The idea?

Send a roped party of 11 suburban football licensees to climb Kala Patthar in the Himalayas and ultimately promote their professional integration.

The operation is a double success.

Eight out of eleven will reach the top and ten out of eleven will obtain a CDI in less than a year.

The choice of land is not trivial.

Mountaineer is another of the thousand faces of the man with the mustache, who even wrote a dictionary in love with the mountains as well as a book about his friend and since 1988 holder of the record for the solo ascent of Everest without oxygen. , Marc Batard.

Thiriez: “With Philippe Deslandes, who is my guide and my 'brother', we made a good package of the 4.000 of Europe, a good ten.

After which I left for the Himalayas with Pierre Maezau on an 8,000.

"

He therefore returned with the young people of Fraternité, of which Sébé Coulibaly was a part.

She remembers.

“We saw him struggling, he was tired, but it was he who told us not to let go.

During the ascent we also had long talks about women's football and how to improve it.

“It is today one of the axes of the campaign of the lawyer who wishes to reach the million dismissed in ten years, against approximately 200,000 currently.

The latter also criticizes the current governance for not fully understanding the evolution of football practice in France and for underestimating the flight of members to other attractive formats.

“I see the 16-25 year olds, I have two sons of that age, their tastes have changed.

Sometimes it bothers them to have practice Wednesday, game on the weekend, take the license, the medical exam, etc.

And they prefer to play five-a-side football with their friends.

The Fed must stop considering 5-a-side football as a competitor to 11-a-side football, it is the same family.

Let's bring the 5-a-side people to our clubs and do it smart.

Have you ever played 5-a-side football?

I love it, it's great.

Frédéric Thiriez as a player of Five, another facet that we had not seen coming.

At this rate, he will end up truly immortal.

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