2023-05-18 20:55:42
Just over a year from the Olympic Games, while the sports movement is in the midst of a crisis, here is the French Taekwondo Federation forced to redo its federal elections, more than two years after the installation of President Hassane Sadok .
New elections of delegates in six regional leagues (it is these delegates who will then elect the committee that will appoint the president of the Federation) must also be reorganized. The decision comes from a judgment of the court of Lyon, which had been seized by a collective, in particular led by Mikael Meloul, unsuccessful candidate for the presidency of the federation.
“It is a rare decision, the clear, clear and limpid recognition of the actions which have been carried out, estimates Tatiana Vassine, lawyer of the collective. It’s painstaking work that took three years to complete. Attacking a federation, which does not have the same administrative and financial resources as the complainants, is not easy. It’s David versus Goliath. »
“Serious breaches of electoral rules”
As of December 2020, the collective had mobilized. At first, he had alerted the conciliation of the CNOSF, which then went in his direction, already asking the federation to organize new elections. The opinion being then only advisory, no agreement had been reached between the parties, the collective wishing in particular that the elections be organized under the gaze of an independent administrator, as the court finally decided.
Because these are “serious breaches of the electoral rules” that the complainants denounced: non-respect of the notice period (the voters were summoned to Lyon only three days before the federal general assembly), non-respect of the number of powers ( some licensees voted without power, others voted for clubs they could not represent, etc.), irregular calculation method, absence of elective meetings, erroneous figures (a difference of 20,000 licensees was pointed out, whereas the number of licenses determines the number of delegates)…
The various elections took place during the state of health emergency. If the Ministry of Sports then gave the federations the possibility of postponing their elections to 2021, the French taekwondo federation, unlike many others, did not wish to do so.
General meetings organized face-to-face during the health crisis
Opponents also noted that the decree, which at the time set exit permits during the state of health emergency, had not been respected. Some general meetings were thus held face-to-face (however, this was not authorized and some people could not travel beyond a certain radius of km and without valid reason), with therefore a low number of participants. .
“Many departments found themselves without a delegate, the (federal) general assembly was thus amputated by part of its representatives”, notes the collective, which considers that “the assembly was endowed with illegally appointed representatives, the statutory and democratic principles not having been respected (during the election of these representatives). »
In its decision of May 3, 2023, the court therefore annulled the results of the previous elections and appointed an administrator, who has 6 months to organize new ones. “An unjust decision”, according to Hassane Sadok, whom we were able to reach this Thursday.
“Of the 15 conciliations filed by our opponents, we agreed 13 times to redo the elections, but they did not agree with us because they knew they were going to lose,” he judges. And continues: “Our goal is to win the Olympic gold medal. There they are simply putting a spoke in our wheels. They want to buy a Federation that has the wind in its sails”. Hassane Sadok tells us that he plans to appeal this decision (Editor’s note: it is specified in the decision that it is binding, new elections should therefore be held over the next six months).
At the Ministry of Sports, we explain to follow the file closely. “The ministry is currently carrying out a legal expertise to precisely determine all the consequences of this decision and will ensure that the court’s decision is applied in the best possible conditions for the federation, its athletes and its practitioners. “Because one year from the Games, it is through the federation, whose elected officials are theoretically no longer in place, that the aid to athletes in particular as part of Olympic preparation passes.
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