The French Football Federation (FFF) announced Thursday the launch of an internal investigation after accusations of “moral and sexual harassment” made by a former referee currently federal coordinator of amateur arbitration. In the magazine So Foot, the former referee Nicolas Pottier, president of the district of Mayenne and in charge for the FFF of amateur arbitration, charges Thursday the system of arbitration in French football, between cronyism, “positive discrimination” and taboos on homosexuality.
He announced in the magazine that he had filed a complaint on February 14 for “sexual and moral harassment in the private and professional context”, and also for “rape against X” for facts dating back to May 2009 after a match he refereed. “The FFF is immediately carrying out, as an employer, an internal investigation entrusted to a specialized external firm, Alcens”, she announced in a press release, adding that she would be a civil party in the context of the legal proceedings at the following the rape complaint.
The Federation also announced the forthcoming appointment of “a qualified and independent personality to lead an analysis mission (…) of the federal arbitration policy, in order to strengthen, if necessary, its effectiveness. “.
In So Foot, Nicolas Pottier (43) claims in particular to have paid professionally for assuming his homosexuality, which according to him “represented a problem in the middle”. He says he is “victim of a conspiracy” having slowed down his career, when he had officiated from the age of 29 in the first division, and pinpoints an “opaque, perverse and outdated system”.
In recent months, the Federation has been the subject of an audit report commissioned by the Ministry of Sports, which notably considered that the federal policy to combat gender-based and sexual violence “lack(s) of effectiveness and ‘efficiency’. Caught up in controversy and accusations of moral and sexual harassment, the former president of the body Noël Le Graët resigned at the end of February, replaced on an interim basis by his vice-president Philippe Diallo.
