Tribune. Each of these sentences was pronounced by Noël Le Graët, president of the French Football Federation (FFF), that is to say, leader of the most important sports federation in our country and one of the most important in Europe. On September 10, 2019, regarding the shutdown of several L1 and L2 football matches following homophobic shouts and chants: “I won’t stop the matches, I’m totally against it. (…) I don’t want to be held hostage by homophobia. “
On September 15, 2020, after suspicion of racist insults during the PSG-OM football match: “The racist phenomenon in sport, and in football in particular, does not exist or hardly exists”. On March 3, 2021, regarding tensions within the national women’s football team: “They have no lost games. So they can pull their hair out, I don’t care. “
These sentences are unfortunately symptomatic of the lightness with which Noël Le Graët dealt during his mandate with issues of racism, sexism and LGBTIphobia. [la stigmatisation à l’encontre des lesbiennes, gays, bisexuels, transgenres et intersexes]. Questions which, moreover, have not been the subject of any plan or any major action to combat them during his last three terms of office.
Cynicism
We can also point out the lack of consideration of the FFF and Noël Le Graët for women’s football, as evidently evidenced by the differences in the means allocated to him compared to men’s football, or the low number of licensed women. , three years before the Olympic Games which, in Paris, want to be exemplary in terms of parity and inclusion. But how could M. Le Graët put a part of his energy into combating phenomena that he denies or underestimates?
We could say that, fortunately, the mandate of Noël Le Graët is coming to an end. Indeed, this Saturday March 13, the Federal Assembly of the FFF will elect the next team that will lead the federation. Problem: the favorite team is the one made up by… Noël Le Graët, who is therefore almost certain to remain as president of the federation!
Thus, in 2021, in France, within a federation benefiting from a public service delegation, making intolerable remarks and minimizing the phenomena of hatred are not sufficiently disqualifying actions to block the road to a candidacy. to the presidency. Worse, such actions are not even sufficiently disqualifying to prevent the one who would have been the author or the author, to be able to hope to win the election by his peers.
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