Failures, abuses, each other: a parliamentary report overwhelms French sports leaders

Six months before the Paris Olympic Games, the parliamentary commission of inquiry into French sports federations criticizes “systemic failures” in matters of ethics and the fight against sexual violence and calls for the creation of an independent control authority.

“Omerta on all levels” and “between oneself”: the report written by the environmentalist deputy Sabrina Sebaihi paints over 250 pages a vitriolic portrait of French sport, considering it corrupted by the “culture of secrecy, lies and false testimony” and “not sufficiently accustomed to accountability”.

Consulted on Monday by AFP before its publication on Tuesday - the day when Emmanuel Macron must make his wishes to athletes - it concludes six months of stormy hearings in the Assembly. The Paris prosecutor's office had already opened several investigations following reports from the commission on possible "false testimony" from sports leaders before parliamentarians.

The report judges the remuneration of certain managers to be “very high or even abnormal”, targeting in particular the 400,000 euros gross annual and 100,000 euros target bonus received as general director of the French Tennis Federation from 2021 to 2022 Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, today Minister of National Education and Sports.

“In February 2022, the general inspection of education, sport and research called for a reconsideration of the level of remuneration of the ten main executives of the French Tennis Federation and pointed out the absence of recruitment procedures for its main executives,” underlines the MP.

The parliamentarian calls for a “shock of control, transparency and democratic culture”, thanks to the establishment of an “independent administrative authority responsible for protecting the ethics of sport”.

She would like to provide this authority with “power of financial sanctions” against Federations which do not respect their “obligations and commitments”.

The rapporteur also points out the “failures of the State” in its control missions, criticizing the new delegation contracts put in place with the federations, which are “incomplete” and “associated with insufficiently precise commitments”.

Among 60 recommendations, Sabrina Sebaihi asks to “increase the resources of the General Inspectorate of Education, Sport and Research, in order to strengthen the frequency (every 3 years) and depth of controls”.

She also criticizes the French Olympic Committee (CNOSF) for having carried out “intense lobbying against parity” between women and men, during the 2022 law on the democratization of sport, and would like to “fix in the law the principle of real parity in all the governing bodies of the sports movement.

Sabrina Sebaihi also insists on “serious accusations” targeting the French kickboxing federation and its club in Aulnay-sous-Bois by demanding an “inventory”.

After the hearing of journalist Romain Molina before the commission, the Ministry of Sports took legal action after becoming aware of facts likely to reveal a system of blackmail of a sexual nature, in a kickboxing club. The Federation completely contests these accusations, and assures that it will file a complaint for defamation against Romain Molina.

In terms of sexual violence, which has shaken the world of sport since the revelations in 2020 of skater Sarah Abitbol, ​​Sabrina Sebaihi denounces a “long silence”, a “long denial” and a “long inertia” of French sport.

She considers in particular that the Signal-Sports platform launched by the ministry in 2020 is “invisibilized”, “undersized” and “very largely unknown”.

In December, the former Minister of Sports Marie-George Buffet had already called in a report for an “independent authority” to prevent and deal with sexist and sexual violence in sport, a proposal with which Minister Amélie Oudéa-Castéra had agreed. said to disagree, favoring the current cell.

Launched last summer at the initiative of environmentalist deputies, the parliamentary commission of inquiry had aroused tension among certain French sports executives, including the president of the Olympic committee (CNOSF) David Lappartient, who had denounced in a letter " outrageous accusations.

Sabrina Sebaihi criticizes the “casualness” of certain leaders during the hearings. She criticizes in particular the legal director of the French Football Federation Jean Lapeyre for whom “it took 1 hour 30 minutes” to mention the “slightly out of code relationships” with “women” of its former president Noël Le Graët.

The latter, targeted since mid-January 2023 by a judicial investigation for moral and sexual harassment, which he contests, had denounced before the commission an “undeserved media lynching”.