An election without surprise and a snub for Bernard Laporte. His historical opponent, Florian Grill, was elected this Wednesday president of the French Rugby Federation, following an electronic vote which had been taking place since Monday among the 1,900 amateur clubs on the occasion of the 159th Ordinary General Assembly. Elective (AGOE). Florian Grill, who won 58.14% of the vote, beat Patrick Buisson (41.86%), close to Bernard Laporte and from the amateur world. The mobilization was very strong since the participation rate recorded was 92.65% of the clubs representing 95.47% of the votes. In addition, 84.69% of the clubs had been registered to participate in the two elections.
The seat of president had been vacant since the departure on January 27, after the resignation of Bernard Laporte found guilty, during his second term, of having forged a “corruption pact” with the businessman and president of the club of Montpellier Mohed Altrad (he had appealed this decision). The opposition to Laporte within the steering committee of the Federation, embodied by the president of the Ile-de-France League Florian Grill, leader of “Oval Together”, had then resigned en bloc.
An interim president, the treasurer of the FFR Alexandre Martinez, was then appointed to manage day-to-day business. At the end of May, eleven of the twelve vacant seats on the steering committee (out of 40 in total) had been won by the opposition list, which nevertheless still remains in the minority. There should therefore be an unprecedented cohabitation between the Grill camp and the “Laportists” (in particular Serge Simon, Christian Dullin…).
“We are three months away from a World Cup, there is a need for unity in French rugby, underlined the new president of the FFR to AFP, before his election. I am a rational and reasonable business manager: this World Cup was won by the teams and by the governance in place, so it is not illegitimate for them to go all the way. We will take care of driving the legacy, we want to focus on rugby at eight or ten years old.
The new president will be in office until December 2024, when a new elective general meeting will take place. Florian Grill – who will therefore be the representative of the FFR during the World Cup obtained by Bernard Laporte – announced that he intends to “work with the leagues on a territorial redistribution”, to seriously consider the issues affecting the environment and the health in rugby and finally “regain credibility internationally”, after the “business” having affected Bernard Laporte and Claude Atcher, the former boss of the organizing committee of the 2023 World Cup under investigation for moral harassment.