“We don’t see him anymore, we don’t hear him anymore,” said Patrick Buisson about Bernard Laporte the week before the clubs vote. Things have apparently changed, with the resignation of the now ex-president of the French Rugby Federation following the “no” of the clubs in the referendum for his candidate for the delegated presidency, last week. So, The Team reports that Laporte spent much of Thursday in Capbreton with the French XV, who are preparing for their first Six Nations match against Italy on Sunday.
We know that the former coach of the Blues, who appealed his two-year suspended prison sentence, a 75,000 euro fine and a two-year ban on exercising any function related to rugby pronounced in December, is very close to Fabien Galthié. He had made him his titular scrum-half then his captain with the Blues in the early 2000s, before offering him the position that the former coach of Stade Français and Toulon wanted so much.
Laporte as a “super consultant”?
If Galthié is only obsessed with the next World Cup, in a few months at home, and he does not intend to let the affairs of the FFR interfere in this quest, he does not forget his former mentor either. This Friday, The Team echoes of a “slightly eccentric idea” that has been circulating in recent days: that of seeing Bernard Laporte in a role of “super consultant” in the staff of the Blues for the World Cup.
“A kind of assistant (really) like no other, like Galthié in Jacques Brunel’s staff during the 2019 World Cup in Japan? “, asks the daily. This is perhaps a new intrigue that we had not seen coming from the genius screenwriters who took control of the destiny of French rugby. In the meantime, the steering committee must ratify during the day the appointment of Alexandre Martinez, close to Laporte, as interim president of the Federation.