Candidate for a fourth term as president of the French Football Federation, Noël Le Graët is involved in his campaign. He traveled to Dijon on Tuesday, February 16, then to Saint-Apollinaire, where he spoke on the grounds of the ASPTT.
Noël Le Graët and his team have started a tour of the Leagues as part of the electoral campaign for the presidency of the FFF, to be renewed on March 13. A tour “to listen and to learn from the clubs” in the difficult context.
In Lyon this Monday February 15, 2021, the candidate for re-election was this Tuesday February 16 traveling to Dijon. With its program a meeting with the members of the Ligue de Bourgogne-Franche-Comté football at the Gaston Gérard stadium then a short visit to Saint-Apollinaire, within the facilities and on one of the ASPTT Dijon fields.
“French football is going badly, ah good?”
By outgoing president of a Federation in good financial health and with good sporting results according to the person concerned, candidate who is announced as favorite to his succession against his two competitors in the election – Michel Moulin and Frédéric Thiriez -, Noël Le Graët obviously did not want to stop on this competition.
“They must be of good will. They have a program. But it is the amateurs and the pros who will decide, not the statements, ”he said about these two other candidates.
How to interpret the statements of Frédéric Thiriez affirming that several of his supporters withdrew after being pressured? “You will ask him the question when you see him,” replied Noël Le Graët. What also to respond to the message conveyed by the two outsiders to the presidency of the FFF, who intend to blow a new wind on French football which is going badly according to them? “Nothing at all. French football is going badly, ah good? ”, Reacted the president of the French Football Federation.
“Me, I am in a hurry to play”
It is not by chance that the sequence open to the press on Tuesday was the trip of Noël Le Graët and his team to the heart of a training session for young people from ASPTT Dijon. This on behalf of an electoral campaign where the issue of health and in this case the rescue of amateur football in the face of the health crisis is clearly one of the issues.
The opportunity for the president of the FFF to say: “What we are asked, wherever we go, is to play. We can see it, the kids are happy ”. By specifying: “The questions are: when can we replay and what are the help? The answers belong to the state and the virus. Me, I am in a hurry to play. The Coupe de France is a solid argument. That said, the health crisis exists and we cannot take decisions that would be contrary to the State ”.
In decoded, no date for a possible resumption of the amateur championships is given, nor any “deadline” for a definitive end of the championships this season. Noël Le Graët ensures that “everyone is aware” of the delicate situation of amateur clubs today, while relativizing: “They are not in great difficulty, they have shortfalls because they organize tournaments that they can not do. But it is not the great misery ”.
“Our budget for the year and our commitments will be maintained,” said the president of the FFF to conclude his visit. A visit led by Fabien Baumann, president of the football section of ASPTT Dijon, and also followed by Daniel Fonteniaud, president of the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté football league, Daniel Durand, president of the Côte-d’Or district , Christophe Caillet, president of the Yonne district, or Jamel Sandjak, president of Ligue Paris Île-de-France, Brigitte Henriques, former international player, Philippe Diallo, member of the UCPF, Marc Keller, president of the Racing Club from Strasbourg, and Hélène Schrub, general manager of FC Metz.
Alix berthier
Photos: Alix Berthier
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