The fate of Noël Le Graët, the former president of the FFF, set back after his media release on Zinedine Zidane on the airwaves of RMC in early January, now seems almost sealed. While the three inspectors of the General Inspectorate for Education, Sport and Research (IGESR), in charge of the audit of the French Football Federation must submit their final conclusions to the Minister of Sports, Amélie Oudéa -Castéra, next February 15, the investigation unit of Radio France published this Friday the details of the charges against the former boss of French football.
Since the start of the mission in October 2022, the inspectors have interviewed 103 people, including employees and former employees of the FFF. And they retained the following alleged facts: Text messages indicating for example “good evening without me!!!!! » ; an explicit request to a young woman to put on a skirt to travel; caresses on the thigh of another, not consenting, during a trip; the explicit proposal of a “threesome” during a dinner with two collaborators; sending a voice message saying “I’m on my third bottle (…); I expect you for the fourth. The whole being often linked to an obvious state of drunkenness, to the point that the employees of the FFF had, according to the investigators, a “coded formula” to know if the boss was drunk by asking “Has the President had a lunch ? “. “These actions may have undermined the dignity of the victims through vulgar remarks, in particular when Mr. Le Graët shows tangible signs that he is under the influence of alcohol”, points out the final report.
The lawyers of Noël Le Graët, who received the interim report on January 30, have until Monday to submit their observations to the inspectors. If the latter have already mentioned “a report that looks like an indictment” of their press release, justice, seized through the Paris prosecutor’s office, has already opened an investigation on January 16 against NLG for “moral harassment and sexual”, following the report issued by the IGESR. It now remains to know the answer of the former mayor of Guingamp. Two options are available to him. If he resigns, which would suit everyone, from the Comex of the FFF to the Ministry of Sports, Le Graët would avoid a crisis in the crisis at the federal level. But if he chooses to cling to it, he could then be brought before a disciplinary body of the Federation and lead to a humiliating radiation. In either option, Le Graët’s hours are counted.
Florence Hardouin, the former general manager, is also not spared. He would, in particular, be criticized in this report for his “passivity” and his “misplaced authoritarianism”. Laid off on January 11 by the Comex of the FFF as a precaution, at the same time as the withdrawal of Le Graët, she was summoned on February 21 to an interview prior to a possible dismissal.