Crisis at the FFF: "It's the whole system that needs to be changed", laments the former president of the Football League

Jean-Baptiste Sarrazin 9:25 p.m., February 06, 2023

A week after the damning audit report on the president of the French Football Federation Noël Le Graët, the former strongman of the Professional Football League (LFP) Frédéric Thiriez returned to the crisis that the institution is going through.

Exclusively on the

(every evening from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m.), the trained lawyer was very critical of the system currently in place at the Federation.

"How did we come to this at the French Football Federation?", He was indignant at the microphone of Lionel Rosso.

For the former president of the LFP, "it's the whole system that needs to be changed, it's too easy to shoot Noël Le Graët who is the ideal culprit even if he looked for it".

According to him, "the excesses that we are denouncing today had been known for two, three and even four years," he said before continuing: "Myself, a candidate at the time for the presidency of the Federation , I had denounced them in length, breadth and across. And when I say denounced it was on declarations on: "There is no racism in football", referring to a reaction on a set television which had been criticized. 

For Frédéric Thiriez, it is now essential to "think about possible solutions to save football".

The image returned by the current Federation saddens the former president of the League who thinks above all of the "two million licensees and 400,000 volunteers".

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Proposals

Rethinking the functioning of the Federation is essential for Frédéric Thiriez who offers several solutions.

"With the system as it is institutionalized, the list that comes first, even with 51% of the votes, obtains 100% of the seats. You have no minority represented on the Executive Committee. All the elected officials who sit are obliged to president since they owe him their election", criticized the lawyer.

According to him, it is the lack of counter-power that has led to this mismanagement of the FFF. 

To get out of this crisis, he thus proposes to give voice, or power, to a plurality of players in the world of football via a "Parliament".

"I propose to create the Parliament of Football which would be the counter-power of the Executive Committee and which would exercise the "legislative power" therefore the rules of football, the financial power and the control of the executive", a Parliament which would include "all League presidents, all district presidents, players' and coaches' unions and former internationals", he detailed in 

.

Currently, the Federation is akin to a "dictatorial system" in which "nobody dares to say anything in front of the president".

The voting method is also to be reviewed for the former president of the LFP.

“When will universal suffrage arrive at the French Football Federation?” he asked.

Currently, the executive committee is elected by "Grand Electors", a system criticized by Frédéric Thiriez.

"There are 13,000 clubs in the Federation. It would seem normal to me that it is they who elect the executive of the Federation", ended up concluding Frédéric Thiriez.