Internally, the general staff of the French Football Federation (FFF) has not hidden its skepticism and criticism regarding the work of the parliamentary commission of inquiry into failures in sports federations. A bit annoyed at having to answer questions from deputies in the National Assembly, the new president of the FFF, Philippe Diallo, and its general director, Jean-François Vilotte, were rather spared by the said commission during their hearing, Friday October 27.
In two voices, MM. Diallo and Vilotte tried to demonstrate that the FFF, the largest sports federation in the country (2.1 million members), had been able to turn the page, a few months after the serious governance crisis experienced by the institution. The tornado led to the resignation in February of former president Noël Le Graët, 81, who had been at the helm of the FFF since 2011, amid accusations of sexual and moral harassment.
Elected in June with a Soviet score (91% of the votes), Mr. Diallo held the “social commitment plan” of the FFF, presented a week earlier by the federation. The latter was, however, singled out in February by an audit by the general inspectorate of education, sport and research, particularly in the fight against sexist and sexual violence (SGBV).
A new “governance” praised by Mr. Diallo
“Fight against all discrimination”, “creation of a behavior observatory”, “partnership with UNESCO and the France Victimes association”, “new alert platform on the FFF website accessible to all licensees”, “envelope of 6 million euros to ensure the financing of these programs”… The management of the FFF has listed all the measures taken to “open the FFF to society”recalling the “ten reports made to the courts” in 2022 and 2023 by the federation, under article 40 of the code of criminal procedure, for “facts related to SGBV” Or “management errors which may be of a criminal nature”.
MM. Diallo and Vilotte, however, had difficulty answering the question from the rapporteur, Sabrina Sebaihi (Europe Ecologie-Les Verts) on the fiasco of the FFF toll-free number intended for victims of violence, which, according to The Team, rang out in the void from April to October 2022 after the end of a partnership with an association, the Ethics and Sport Committee.
Mr. Diallo praised the news ” governance “ implementation at the FFF, which he depicted in “glass house”. But the new president of the federation, “brought to be auditioned” as part of the preliminary investigation opened against Mr. Le Graet, in January, by the Paris prosecutor’s office for “moral and sexual harassment”, did not wish to discuss his predecessor. However, he declared under oath that he had not ” awareness ” alleged inappropriate SMS messages sent by “NLG” to ex-employees only in September 2022, with the publication of an article in the magazine So Foot.
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