Less than six months before the opening of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games (from July 26 to August 11), it was a leak which caused some turmoil within the Organizing Committee for the Olympic and Paralympic Games (Cojop) of the global sporting event. Tuesday February 6, Agence France-Presse revealed the opening of a new preliminary investigation by the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF) in connection with the Games and its organizers. As confirmed by a source close to the case, this criminal procedure targets the remuneration conditions (270,000 euros gross per year) of the president of Cojop, Tony Estanguet. She was entrusted to the economic crime repression brigade, within the Parisian judicial police.
This is the sixth preliminary investigation opened since 2017 by the PNF in connection with Cojop and the 2024 Games. At this stage, the entire staff of the organizing committee is in the crosshairs. of French justice. In addition to Tony Estanguet, figure of French Olympism and triple gold medalist at the Olympics, Etienne Thobois, general director of Paris 2024, Michaël Aloïsio, deputy general director, and Edouard Donnelly, executive director of operations – sor the four main leaders, in the hierarchical order, of the organizing committee of the Games – are now in the sights of investigators for suspicion of “illegal taking of interests”, “favoritism” And ” Bribery “.
This leak via the AFP was hardly to the liking of the PNF, which did not confirm the information and “did not wish to communicate on the opening of a possible investigation”. The PNF indicates to World to have “adopted limited communication around files involving the different organizational structures of the Olympic Games, in order to preserve the chances of success of these procedures”. He adds : “The choice of certain media to reveal the existence of ongoing investigations, even before the carrying out of search operations or the hearing of the main people involved, is likely to constitute a significant obstacle to the manifestation of the truth. »
“It is not Tony Estanguet who sets his remuneration”
For its part, the organizing committee, which announced on Tuesday its “astonishment” upon the announcement of the opening of the investigation, denies “formally” having freed itself from the regulations on remuneration applicable to associations of the 1901 law type, a legal form adopted during the creation of Cojop in early 2018. Interviewed Tuesday evening on the sidelines of the inauguration of the Annette Kellerman swimming pool in La Courneuve ( Seine-Saint-Denis), Tony Estanguet claimed that it was not him “who decides[ait] of [sa] remuneration or its executive”. “I trust what was decided at the time”he added.
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