A complaint for corruption and embezzlement of property against the French Tennis Federation (FFT) and concerning the Roland-Garros ticket office has been dismissed, a source familiar with the matter said on Wednesday. The national financial prosecutor’s office (PNF) confirmed to AFP the “decision of classification without follow-up for absence of infringement”.
Executives and former leaders of the FFT had filed a complaint on March 16, accusing the current president of the federation Gilles Moretton and two of his relatives, the current treasurer Jean-Luc Barrière and his former chief of staff Hugues Cavallin, of having “organized the embezzlement of Roland-Garros tournament tickets to the detriment of the FFT”.
“My clients instructed me to request the appointment of an investigating judge” by filing a complaint with civil action “so that the investigation is contradictory and that they can participate in it as of civil party ”, announced to AFP the lawyer of the plaintiffs, Me Jean-Pierre Versini-Campinchi.
Anticor had in turn taken legal action on March 22 with a report denouncing the same facts. “The association will study the file in order to assess the advisability of becoming a civil party, as allowed by its approval”, according to its president Elise Van Beneden.
“From the beginning we say that there is no criminal connotation and the PNF has just validated it,” said Me Alain Jakubowicz, lawyer for Mr. Moretton. “We do not refrain from filing a complaint for slanderous denunciation because they know very well that what we are saying is true”, he added, denouncing an “instrumentalization” of justice and a media campaign which has “dirty” the federation and its president.
According to the plaintiffs and Anticor, the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes (AURA) tennis league, chaired from 2018 to 2021 by Gilles Moretton, and the Paris committee, led by Jean-Luc Barrière, now treasurer of the FFT, would have operated illegal resale of tickets. The Parisian committee was notably suspected of having resold 40 tickets for the 2019 edition of the Roland-Garros tournament to AS Events, a company whose companion Hugues Cavallin, former president of the Paris committee until 2017, “owns 50% shares”, according to the description of Anticor consulted by AFP.
Anticor and the plaintiffs also denounced the coinage of 80 tickets by the AURA League, then chaired by Gilles Moretton, within the framework of partnership contracts entered into with sponsors in exchange for these premium tickets for the 2020 edition of Roland-Garros. However, these practices were no longer permitted since September 2017 according to Anticor: “only the FFT could now proceed to the sale of its seats” after this date.
President of the FFT since February 2021, Gilles Moretton had swept aside the accusations, denouncing “stink balls”. For the PNF, “the transfers in question took place before the modification” of the regulations and the tickets granted to the leagues “gave rise to consistent financial compensation for the benefit of the leagues concerned, without any misappropriation or personal profit on the part of the leaders” . “No objective element can also support the acts of corruption which are denounced”, according to the financial prosecutor’s office.
