The Minister of Sports counterattacks. Accused by the lawyer of Noël Le Graët of having “lied” on the content of the audit report of the General Inspectorate of Education, Sport and Research (IGESR), Amélie Oudéa-Castéra affirmed on Wednesday on RTL that she had “never accused of harassment” the resigning president of the French Football Federation (FFF) Noël Le Graët, who intends to file a defamation complaint against her. “I find it distressing, I never insulted anyone, I remained polite, I never accused him of harassment,” she said.
“We did a thorough job for four months, respecting the contradictory of each of the parties (…) and I will not allow the quality of the work that has been done to be denigrated”, she added while the lawyers for Noël Le Graët wish to challenge the report of the General Inspectorate of Education, Sport and Research (IGESR) which was delivered in mid-February. “It is the prosecutor who has decided sovereignly to open an investigation for acts of moral and sexual harassment” on the basis of this inspection report, she recalled.
Le Graët places himself as a victim
The Minister reiterated on RTL what she had declared at a press conference: “The (inspection) mission evokes remarks and text messages emanating from Mr. Le Graët, ambiguous for some and of a clearly sexual nature for others”. “I never called him a stalker,” she insisted. “This defense strategy does not fool many people (…)”, she added while the president of the FFF claims to be the victim of a “well-organized political and media cabal”.