This case is causing a stir. In a survey published in the newspaper L’Équipe in June, several people had mentioned “management by terror”, within the Public Interest Group (GIP), which is currently organizing the 2023 Rugby World Cup. Charges brushed aside by the boss, Claude Atcher.
In an interview with the JDD this Sunday, the boss of the World Cup organizing committee denied these accusations: “When you do an internal analysis, you don’t have the impression of living in such an environment. This does not mean that the problem should be concealed. Maybe we missed something despite our devices, but there were never any alerts on the subjects posed in the article.
Labor inspection seized
The employees had also mentioned successive resignations and anxiety attacks, because of the conduct of Claude Atcher and his chief of staff. The Minister of Sports, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, subsequently seized the Labor Inspectorate to shed light on this affair.
“That a social malaise of this level has been described challenged me and led me to take action. With my teams, we immediately established a five-point plan”, explained Claude Atcher, before detailing the measures put in place: “a permanent listening system which allows employees to express themselves anonymously so that they benefit of appropriate support”.
The boss of the Rugby World Cup organizing committee spoke of “an intergenerational gap” with the teams he manages: “There may be this difference in culture with my paternalistic management. I am able to tell someone face to face that their work is not good. Systematically, I add: attention, it is not your person who is targeted”.
“It was one of the fantasies of the police”
In this same interview, Claude Atcher also returned to the Laporte-Altrad case, in which he will be tried next September (with Laporte and Altrad) at the Paris Criminal Court for “concealment of breach of trust”, “abuse of corporate assets” and “work concealed by concealment of activity”. “It’s damaging. As far as I am concerned, I have nothing to do with the main case which is going to be tried, ”defended the former rugby player.
The 66-year-old businessman also dismissed the thesis of a possible purchase of the Mondial: “It was one of the fantasies of the police when they landed on the file. Their investigations showed that there was nothing. No charges have been brought against me regarding these suspicions. I am not a friend of Bernard Laporte. We met in 2016, when I agreed to participate in his campaign out of conviction. And I find myself stuck in a washing machine.