Cyrille de La Morinerie, edited by Gauthier Delomez
An explosive investigation for the French Football Federation (FFF). An independent journalist, Romain Molina, describes a form of institutionalized law of silence in a long article resulting from two years of work and published this Friday in a Norwegian press title. According to him, for 40 years, the FFF would have tried to hide sexual abuse. Cases of abuse, but also of sexual assault and harassment of adults and minors which, in most cases, would never have been reported to the authorities.
“Whether it is abuse of minors, touching, violence, sexual blackmail or other, or crimes punishable by French law, in no case has the federation seized the authority. Only once, because the players had threatened to strike,” says the French journalist at the microphone of Europe 1. “Of the nine other cases, they never seized someone.”
Trainer accused of sex with minors
In this investigation, Romain Molina evokes a trainer dismissed from the French federation after alleged sexual relations with underage players in Clairefontaine. If President Noël Le Graët alerted the public prosecutor by mail, the journalist also affirms that this coach continued to work with children.
Of the ten cases mentioned in his article, Romain Molina argues that the political leaders of the time were not warned. In the meantime, according to information from Europe 1, no judicial inquiry has been opened.
Many other malfunctions revealed
The independent journalist’s paper was published just before the launch of an audit by the Ministry of Sports, after the publication of another investigation, that of the magazine “So Foot”, pointing out numerous dysfunctions within the FFF and in particular the sending of sexual text messages to employees of the FFF by President Noël Le Graët.
This launch of an audit is a very rare procedure, a sign that Minister Amélie Oudéa-Castéra takes this matter very seriously. Investigators from the Ministry of Sports will come to the federation to hear the main leaders and go through the various documents. The objective is to verify the information of “So Foot”, which also evoked a toxic atmosphere within the FFF or even a clan war. On Thursday, the French Football Federation also filed a complaint against the magazine for defamation.