2023-06-14 20:37:12
In mid-March, executives and former leaders of the French Tennis Federation filed a complaint against the current president Gilles Moretton and two of his relatives, the treasurer Jean-Luc Barrière and his former chief of staff Hugues Cavallin, accused of having “organized the embezzlement of Roland-Garros tournament tickets to the detriment of the FFT”. This Wednesday, according to a source close to the case at AFP, the complaint for corruption and embezzlement of property was dismissed by the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF) for “absence of offense”.
“My clients instructed me to request the appointment of an investigating judge” by filing a complaint with civil action “so that the investigation is contradictory and that they can participate in it as a party civil “, announced to AFP the lawyer of the plaintiffs, Me Jean-Pierre Versini-Campinchi. The Anticor association had in turn taken legal action on March 22 with a report denouncing the same facts.
According to the plaintiffs and Anticor, the Auvergne – Rhône-Alpes (AURA) tennis league, chaired from 2018 to 2021 by Gilles Moretton, and the Paris committee, led by Jean-Luc Barrière, now treasurer of the FFT, would have operated illegal resale of tickets. The Parisian committee was notably suspected of having resold 40 tickets for the 2019 edition of the Roland-Garros tournament to AS Events, a company whose companion Hugues Cavallin, former president of the Paris committee until 2017, “holds 50 % of the shares”, according to the description of Anticor consulted by AFP.
“There is no objective element to support the facts”
Anticor and the plaintiffs also denounced the coinage of 80 tickets by the AURA League, then chaired by Gilles Moretton, within the framework of partnership contracts entered into with sponsors in exchange for these premium tickets for the 2020 Roland-Garros edition. However, these practices were no longer permitted since September 2017 according to Anticor: “Only the FFT could now proceed to the sale of its seats” after this date.
President of the FFT since February 2021, Gilles Moretton had swept aside the accusations, denouncing “stink balls”. For the PNF, “the transfers in question took place before the modification” of the regulations and the tickets granted to the leagues “gave rise to consistent financial compensation for the benefit of the leagues concerned, without any misappropriation or personal profit on the part of the leaders ” . “No objective element can also support the acts of corruption that are denounced”, according to the financial prosecutor’s office.
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