Less than three months from the 2023 World Cup in France rugby is looking for a new president. The electronic vote, which begins Monday morning, will be closed Wednesday noon and the results announced immediately after. The elected president, Patrick Buisson or Florian Grill, will then be in office until the fall of 2024.
The seat has indeed been vacant since the departure on January 27, during his second term, of the former strongman of the FFR, Bernard Laporte, after his two-year suspended prison sentence. He had been found guilty of having entered into a “corruption pact” with the businessman and president of the Montpellier club Mohed Altrad, a decision which he challenged by appealing.
Bush on the Grill
The opposition to Laporte within the steering committee of the Federation, embodied by the president of the League of Ile-de-France Florian Grill, had then resigned en bloc. An interim president, the treasurer of the FFR Alexandre Martinez, was then appointed to manage day-to-day business.
At the end of May, eleven of the twelve vacant seats (out of 40 in total) on the steering committee were won by the opposition list, which nevertheless still remains in the minority.
Monday is therefore a “second round” which awaits the two camps, as the opening match of the World Cup approaches (September 8 – October 28) between the XV of France, showcase of the FFR, and the All Blacks.
For Patrick Buisson, candidate of the majority, the “victory” of the Grill camp in the steering committee does not look like a “snub” but rather the “first half” of a match.
The Laporte camp “led to the mark? »
“Certainly, we are not going to pretend, we are led to the mark. Now, we must actually reverse this result and do everything necessary for the clubs to trust us, “he said in an interview with AFP, explaining that he did not “regret” not not have campaigned.
Preferring to highlight his “very, very great experience as a leader” who “perfectly masters the federal apparatus”, the former scrum-half trained in Vienne (Isère) recalled that he was at the origin of the “digitalization and the “simplification” of processes at the FFR. What he now wants is “to rework on the pyramid of youth competitions”, “to upgrade” financial aid to training clubs and “to retain” volunteers and new licensees who should flock after the World Cup.
Facing him, Florian Grill, who offered an “outstretched hand” to his opponent in the event of victory so that he takes care of the World Cup until its end, told AFP that he intended to “rebuild the grassroots rugby. “The Antoine Dupont, the Greg Alldritt… They all come from small clubs. It is very important to have this network”, he underlined, referring to the “sporting”, “educational” and “citizen” issues of rugby, while highlighting his experience as a “rational business manager and reasonable”.
If he is elected, the former second line of the PUC intends to “work with the leagues on a territorial redistricting”, to seriously consider the issues affecting the environment and health in rugby and finally “to regain credibility at the “international”, after the “business” having affected Bernard Laporte and Claude Atcher, the former boss of the organizing committee of the Mondial-2023 targeted by an investigation for moral harassment.