A captain, but no longer a coach. Sébastien Grosjean will lose some of his prerogatives. The presidency of the French Tennis Federation (FFT), requested by its ethics committee, proposed to withdraw the choice of players chosen for the France team from the captain of the Blues, to avoid possible conflicts of interest, according to a press release. published on Monday.
In this text, the FFT indicates that the committee “compared the functions of captain of Mr. Grosjean with his interests resulting from various external activities”. Following this examination, “the committee concluded that certain situations of interference constituting “conflicts of interest” existed”.
Tournament director, TV consultant, player representation
Apart from his cap as captain of the French men’s team, Sébastien Grosjean is also director of the Open Sud de France tournament and consultant for the beIN Sports television channel. But he is also co-founder and shareholder of Tennium, a tournament organizing agency and representative of players, in particular Richard Gasquet, who is also a shareholder of Tennium, and Arthur Fils. It is this last function which could mainly influence the selection process for the Davis Cup and for the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, according to the ethics committee.
“The committee is of the opinion that the restrictions contractually provided for, no more than the reputation of Mr. Grosjean, are not enough to eliminate the conflicts of interest identified”, according to the press release from the FFT.
Among several options to “neutralize these conflicts of interest”, the FFT, requested by the committee, therefore suggested excluding Grosjean from the “player selection process” so that the choice of players is “made after consultation with the director national technical team and the high-level director of the FFT”, respectively Nicolas Escudé and Paul-Henri Mathieu.
The ethics committee also spoke out on the wave of a hundred layoffs of employees, notably revealed by Mediapart, judging it “disproportionate” and recalled that it “belongs[enait] the present and future teams at the head of the FFT to do everything possible to ensure that changes in governance have only a limited impact on employees”.
The criticized marriage of the president of the FFT at Roland-Garros
In another file, the committee also described as “undesirable” “mixture of genres” “the progress at Roland-Garros of the wedding party of the current president, elected at the beginning of 2021, Gilles Moretton.
In mid-June, a complaint for corruption and misappropriation of property targeting the French Tennis Federation (FFT) and concerning the Roland-Garros ticket office had been dismissed. The plaintiffs accused President Gilles Moretton and two of his relatives, the current treasurer Jean-Luc Barrière and his former chief of staff Hugues Cavallin, of having “organized the embezzlement of Roland-Garros tournament tickets to the detriment of the FFT and to have “exempted themselves from the consequences of their misdeeds”.