The retired president of the French Rugby Federation (FFR) Bernard Laporte was placed in police custody on Tuesday, January 24, as part of an investigation for laundering aggravated tax fraud, said the national financial prosecutor's office (PNF) , confirming information from L'Équipe.

The investigations, launched in August 2020, were entrusted to the Financial Judicial Investigation Service (SEJF), said this source.

>> To read: Bernard Laporte agrees to withdraw from the federation, not to leave

"He was summoned for a hearing by tax police, he went there with a tax lawyer," one of his lawyers, Me Jean-Pierre Versini-Campinchi, told AFP.

"It is perfectly scandalous that the prosecution chose the date of the election of Mr. Buisson [his replacement at the head of the FFR, editor's note] to fix that of the hearing and that the disclosure of this hearing was made on same day", he added, castigating "a relentlessness of the PNF".

Bernard Laporte at the heart of several cases

Since Monday, and until Thursday, the approximately 1,900 amateur clubs in the country are called upon to decide on the candidacy of Patrick Buisson, vice-president in charge of amateur rugby, to take the head of the Federation during the withdrawal of Bernard Laporte, under pressure from the Ministry of Sports and the Ethics Committee of the FFR.

According to a source familiar with the matter, this investigation is separate from the corruption case in which the former coach of the France team was sentenced at first instance on December 13 to two years in prison, suspended, alongside the businessman Mohed Altrad, sentenced to an 18-month suspended prison sentence.

Bernard Laporte appealed against this judgment.

It is also separate from the PNF investigation targeting the organizing committee of the Rugby World Cup "France 2023" for favouritism, influence peddling and corruption.

With AFP

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