Brigitte Henriques, president of the French National Olympic and Sports Committee, had mentioned the idea of asking, this Thursday, a vote of confidence at the general assembly of the body. Hoping to put an end to a crisis that had been poisoning the life of the CNOSF for a year. The president of the CNOSF took everyone by surprise by announcing her resignation.
A twist fourteen months before the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
Internal conflicts and rivalries got the better of the former vice-president of the French Football Federation (FFF), the first woman elected to head the body on June 29, 2021, in open war for months with her predecessor Denis Masselia.
The secretary general of the body Astrid Guyart, a former fencer, will act as interim until the election of a new president “in the next three months”, specifies the press release from the CNOSF.
“The situation was no longer tenable, she made the right choice,” reacted a federation president present at the time of the announcement of this resignation during a highly anticipated general meeting.
The CNOSF is going through an unprecedented crisis, between threats of complaints, low blows and revelations of email exchanges in the press…
This climate has become even heavier in recent days with the announcement by Denis Masseglia of an upcoming complaint to the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF) for breach of trust targeting the term of office of Brigitte Henriques.
The eviction in September 2022 of Henriques’ former right-hand man, Didier Seminet, triggered a deep crisis from which the institution has never recovered.
The proximity to the Paris Olympics, in fourteen months, and this endless crisis, worried many players in French sport.
“This resignation is a way of settling the crisis, and it’s quite noble,” reacted another federation president.