Until then rather discreet since his conviction by the courts to two years in prison and a fine of 75,000 euros for corruption, and his exclusion from the French Rugby Federation, Bernard Laporte has chosen to come out of the woods by this end of the year to settle scores with Florian Grill, his opponent and successor at the head of the FFR, but without ever naming him. Guest of Bartoli Time on RMC on Sunday evening, “Bernie”, who has just been appointed director of rugby for the MHR of his great friend Mohed Altrad, first said he was “annoyed not to have been invited for the opening match of the World Cup against the All Blacks.
“I found it scandalous for people who, after us, said they wanted to bring together and unite. And they don’t invite the person who went to win the World Cup, even though this organization had lost it. In two weeks I managed to reverse the trend and get this World Cup. (…) This World Cup is me. So not having been invited, it hurt me,” said the former French coach.
Thinly veiled accusations
But you can imagine, Laporte did not stop there. For him, the management team in place during this World Cup “broke everything”. Asked to develop these thinly veiled accusations, the former boss of the FFR suggested that the federal leaders did not weigh enough with World Rugby in order to benefit, as is often the case for the host country. of a World Cup, of a certain leniency on the part of the referees. Which was, it must be admitted, not the case for the French team this year.
“It’s so obvious. I worked with them (World Rugby executives) for six years, I know what I’m talking about. I was vice-president for two years, and for four years on the board. It’s always been like that, it’s always been important. So that doesn’t mean that the referee favors you, eh, that’s not what should be said, but there we had the impression of not playing the World Cup at home. It is obvious. No political weight, nothing, only constant criticism… I say it again: we should have been world champions,” he repeated.
“Some people broke everything”
And the guy added a final layer in case those doing it hadn’t followed well. “It’s not just me who’s capable. But if the people in place had done the job, we should have been world champions. (…) We have to weigh, at a given moment, we must not just criticize. (…) We had a golden opportunity to be world champions, but some people ruined everything. »
We must therefore believe that it is neither the performances of the players, nor the tactical choices of the coach, nor even the abilities of the Springboks to annihilate those of the Blues which would be responsible for the French failure during their World Cup. And that with Bernie, at present, the Webb Ellis trophy would be sitting quietly in the FFR window. And if he didn’t go so far as to say that all of this is ultimately the fault of justice, we weren’t far from it. Sacred Bernard.