After three months of legal analysis, the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF) decided, Wednesday June 14, to classify without follow-up “for lack of infringement” a criminal complaint filed against X by elected officials of the French Tennis Federation (FFT) for suspicion of “corruption” and “misappropriation of public property” in connection with the ticketing of the Grand Slam at Roland-Garros, learned The world.
This announcement comes a few days after the 2023 edition of the tournament and offers respite to the management of the FFT, plunged into embarrassment for several weeks. Said complaint was filed on March 16 by seven leaders and former executives of the Federation, including Alain Moreau (current president of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine league) and Pascal Da Costa (member of the Superior Council of Tennis).
They accused the president of the body, Gilles Moretton, elected on February 13, 2021, and two of his relatives, Hugues Cavallin, his former chief of staff, and Jean-Luc Barrière, treasurer general of the FFT, “for having organized the embezzlement of Roland-Garros tournament tickets to the detriment of the FFT. » And to be exempt from “consequences of their misdeeds” since their accession to the orders of the federation, “by means of new abuses of their office”. Both the management of the FFT and Mr. Cavallin had refuted these allegations.
Court battle
The decision of the PNF to close the complaint does not however put an end to the legal battle. The plaintiffs’ lawyer, Jean-Pierre Versini-Campinchi, informed the World that he is going to file a complaint with civil action.
“Since the PNF has not opened an investigation after three months of analysis, we are going to request referral to an investigating judge so that my clients are party to a judicial investigation, adversarial procedure, and can request the realization acts within the framework of the investigation”explains Me Versini-Campinchi.
On March 24, Anticor, an anti-corruption association approved by Matignon for the exercise of the rights of the civil party, had filed a report with the PNF. Both Anticor and the plaintiffs identified alleged misappropriation of public property in 2019, by the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes league, chaired from 2018 to 2021 by Mr. Moretton. In question: the sale, within the framework of a partnership, of eighty places to the interim company Adéquat, which then had them marketed as “VIP Gold” tickets.
On May 2, Mr. Moretton’s lawyer, Alain Jakubowicz, counter-attacked by sending the PNF an eight-page note to sweep away the complainants’ accusations and request a dismissal. The lawyer for the president of the FFT considered, in essence, that, taking into account the chronology of the modification of the internal regulations, nothing prohibited at the material time from including tickets for Roland-Garros in the contracts of partnership sealed by the regional leagues.
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