We admit it: we couldn’t wait to enjoy an interview with Mohed Altrad seeking to justify the signing of Bernard Laporte as director of rugby within Montpellier Hérault Rugby (MHR). This moment arrived this Monday morning, since the sulfurous president of the current red lantern of the Top 14 spoke in The Team. Remember that the two leaders were convicted at first instance, a year ago, for corruption and influence peddling.
“Bernard was the only one who was available and he wanted to do something at this club. We must remember the emergency in which we were. I had no one on hand,” explains Mohed Altrad straight away, while the MHR has just suffered its eighth defeat in a row on Saturday (34-19 in Bayonne). The businessman of Syrian origin continues: “On a technical and criminal level, did I respect the law by recruiting Bernard Laporte? I think so in relation to the Labor Code. He has the right to work. He was convicted, he appealed, so his criminal record is clean. I have the right to hire him.”
“Morality is the science of good and evil”
That’s fine, but obviously a moral question arises, given their recent connection to the Paris criminal court. “Morality is the science of good and evil,” says Mohed Altrad without hesitation. You can consider something good or bad and I the opposite. Compared to the current situation, justice is obliged not to take into account the moral side but to rule according to the laws. If in the back of their minds, the judges feel that Altrad is taunting them, what do you want me to do? I’m not taunting the judges or anyone for that matter. »
The final bouquet of this interview? The fall of the inimitable Hérault stuntman: “I am a humanist, pacifist and a business leader. This is what I am.” OK, we definitely understand why we wanted to have Mohed Altrad’s version.