The comparison, a little easy, often returns in the portraits of Breton at the head of French football. Noël Le Graët (78 years old) looks like a "menhir". And the president of the French Football Federation (FFF) has proven once again that you can't move a megalith easily. Wednesday, May 27, the executive committee (comex) of the federation thus buried the idea of a transition from Ligue 2 from 20 to 22 teams. In recent days, Mr. Le Graët had made it clear that he would invite the comex to veto the decision passed on May 20 by the Professional Football League (LFP).
The 40 clubs of the elite had then adopted, by a small majority (57%), an exceptional enlargement to 22 clubs allowing to save the relegables, Le Mans (19e) and Orleans (20e), while welcoming the graduates from Pau (1er National) and Dunkirk (2e from National). It was a question of taking into account the brutal stop of the season and the situation of Le Mans, relegated to the difference in goals compared to Niort, 18e.
But the president of the FFF (in office since 2011) did not want to allow a precedent. After all, Ligue 1 and the various amateur championships have also seen their season come to an abrupt end with ups and downs. And therefore unhappy. Besides, Amiens and Toulouse (19e and 20e in Ligue 1) have already seized the Council of State to contest their relegation and plead for an elite at 22 next season. To give reason to Ligue 2 would have legitimized this step and Mr. Le Graët especially did not wish it.
A new snub for the LFP
For the LFP, this decision has a whole new fluff. Divided between two unions of presidents and the divergent interests of its members, it did not weigh (or wanted to weigh) in order to allow the seasons of Ligue 1 and Ligue 2 to resume, as is already the case in Germany and soon in Spain. Mr. Le Graët, he always pleaded to stop and was able to be heard. The two championships are however, in theory, under the responsibility of the League, but the former industrialist is not a boss of federation like the others.
Political end, the socialist mayor of Guingamp between 1995 and 2008 easily floats in the current cacophony of French professional football
When his predecessors, like Fernand Duchaussoy or Jean-Pierre Escalettes, were looked down upon by a professional world that saw in them brave leaders from the amateur world with whom they had to deal, Le Graët knows the shop opposite . He was the historic president of En avant Guingamp, disputed the European Cup and directed the LFP between 1991 and 2000. At the time, he was one of the only ones to dare to attack a Bernard Tapie then Almighty President of Olympique de Marseille.
Political end, the socialist mayor of Guingamp between 1995 and 2008 easily floats in the current cacophony of French professional football. Better, it is dubbed by certain presidents of Ligue 1 who recognize in him this authority which they refuse to grant to Nathalie Boy de la Tour, erased president of the LFP. "He is the strong man of French football, he is, underlines the president of Montpellier, Laurent Nicollin at Figaro. When he speaks football, he masters his subject and knows when to punch the table. "
There is one last dissonant voice, that of a friend of almost thirty years: Jean-Michel Aulas, on a crusade to obtain the resumption of the season. However, Mr. Le Graët had no doubt that the president of Olympique lyonnais (and, moreover, a member of the FFF executive committee) would end up in the ranks. "He will become wise soon enough", he said on RMC, the 1er may. An erroneous forecast, since JMA seized from the Council of State to succeed. A last small pebble in the shoe of one who plans to seek a new mandate at the head of the Federation in March 2021. His last, he promises.
