The affair broke out in an already stormy climate within the French Tennis Federation (FFT), while several employees and former employees recently testified anonymously in the media, describing in particular a “rough management” and worrying about the financial management of the institution. According to information revealed by RMC Sport, The Team and Mediapart, a complaint was filed on March 16 with the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF), for “embezzlement” and “corruption” within the FFT. This complaint, of which The world became aware, “still under study”, according to the PNF. It could, in turn, weaken the Minister of Sports Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, who served as director general of the FFT from March 5, 2021 to her appointment to the government, in May 2022.
The seven plaintiffs are mainly leaders or former leaders of the FFT. Among them, Alain Moreau (current president of the Ligue Nouvelle-Aquitaine), Pascal Da Costa (member of the Superior Tennis Council), Thierry Grandgeorge (former president of the Ligue Centre-Val de Loire) or Stéphane Thomann (president of the committee Upper Rhine).
If the complaint was filed against X, it targets in particular the president of the FFT, Gilles Moretton, and two of his relatives, Hughes Cavallin, his former chief of staff, and Jean-Luc Barrière, general treasurer of the FFT, cited in the 13-page document.
“As part of their respective functions, they organized the diversion of Roland-Garros tournament tickets to the detriment of the FFT and their accession to the highest authorities of the federation enabled them, by means of new abuses of their functions, to exonerate themselves from the consequences of their misdeeds”, describes the complaint sent to the PNF. According to our information, the alleged facts contained in the complaint had already been relayed to a magistrate of the Paris public prosecutor’s office, in May 2022, by a former elected representative of the FFT.
“Illicit sales of numerous tickets”
“My clients filed a complaint because they found that the management bodies of their association, the FFT, had not taken the necessary measuressays their lawyer Me Jean-Pierre Versini-Campinchi, who is also, in another case, the counsel of the former president of the French Rugby Federation (FFR), Bernard Laporte. The complainants are not simple members but people, established in the four corners of France, who exercise or have exercised important functions within the FFT and regional leagues and are not candidates for anything today. »
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