The Roland-Garros ticketing affair is experiencing a spectacular rebound. On June 14, after three months of analysis, the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF) decided to dismiss “for lack of infringement” a criminal complaint filed against X by elected officials of the French Tennis Federation (FFT) for suspicion of ” corruption “ and of “embezzlement of public property” in connection with the Parisian Grand Slam ticket office.
Said complaint was filed on March 16 by seven leaders and former executives of the FFT, including Alain Moreau (current president of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine league) and Pascal Da Costa (member of the Superior Council of Tennis). The complainants accused the president of the body, Gilles Moretton, elected on February 13, 2021, and two of his relatives, Hughes Cavallin, his former chief of staff, and Jean-Luc Barrière, treasurer general of the FFT, of“having organized the diversion 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 functions”.
However, according to our information, the public prosecutor’s office of the Paris Court of Appeal decided, on July 24, after having re-examined the file, to “give instructions to the PNF with a view to opening a preliminary investigation”.
“Mistakes made by the PNF”
This unprecedented decision comes after a request filed with the general prosecutor’s office on June 30 by Jean-Pierre Versini-Campinchi, the plaintiffs’ lawyer, under article 40-3 of the code of criminal procedure. In his request, Mr.e Versini-Campinchi contested the classification without follow-up and denounced the “factual and material errors committed by the PNF having led him to an improper analysis of the facts denounced”.
Solicited by The world, the PNF confirms having received these instructions from the public prosecutor’s office. He indicates that he will “carry out a re-examination of the classification decision and additional investigations”. “Depending on this assessment work and any new elements, the PNF will decide whether a preliminary investigation should be opened or not”adds the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office.
The complainants had also noted alleged acts of embezzlement 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 Adequat, which then had them marketed as “VIP Gold” tickets. Allegations swept away by the entourage of Mr. Moretton.
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