Sports Minister Roxana Maracineanu has asked for the resignation of the president of the French ice sports federation, Biterrois Didier Gailhaguet, after revelations of sexual assault and rape in skating. A request made after their interview.
In the midst of a scandal of sexual violence in French skating, his irremovable boss Didier Gailhaguet has promised to counterattack this Wednesday, February 5 in the face of calls for resignation, notably from the Minister of Sports, Roxana Maracineanu.
A showdown
Tuesday evening, at the exit of an extraordinary office of the French Federation of Ice Sports (FFSG), its indestructible president, in office since 1998 except for the period 2004-2007, postponed any decision on a possible resignation at the end of the new administrative inquiry carried out by the Minister.
“Didier Gailhaguet cannot get rid of his responsibility”, the Minister of Sports Roxana Maracineanu asked for the resignation of the president of the French Federation of Ice Sports following revelations of sexual violence in skating. pic.twitter.com/lmcFQNRB2L
– France tv sport (@francetvsport) February 3, 2020
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Sports minister can’t fire federation president only the federation itself can do it. She has asked for it but has no means of action to force this dismissal.
“The case of Mr. Gailhaguet, he is simply a volunteer president of an association who are asked to take responsibility, she told France Info on Tuesday. Indeed, the federation is an association. The statutes specify that it is the authority of its federal council which can dismiss its president.
Promises of revelations
Then he gave an appointment the next day, this Wednesday, February 5, therefore, at the headquarters of the federation, at 2:30 p.m., promising to make revelations, “documents” in support, on the management of the Beyer case, named ex-trainer suspected of sexual abuse on skaters, and accused of rape since last week by a former figure of the sport, Sarah Abitbol.
Even if the facts denounced in her book, “Un si long silence” (Plon), seem prescribed because they date back to the years 1990 to 1992, when she was 15 to 17 years old, the Paris prosecutor’s office announced Tuesday the opening of an investigation into rape and sexual assault on minors by a person having authority over the victim.
General malfunction
Faced with Roxana Maracineanu who castigated a “general dysfunction” within the federation, Gailhaguet had already delivered a start of counterattack on Monday, accusing the predecessor of Maracineanu at the time, Marie-George Buffet, to have allowed Gilles Beyer to stay on the circuit at the beginning of the 2000s, despite an administrative investigation highlighting inappropriate attitudes with young skaters.
“She (Mme Buffet) removed her (her status), and she sent it back to us”, he said.
The administrative inquiry in question, carried out on the basis of a report from parents, had then led the Ministry of Sports to terminate its functions as a State executive on March 31, 2001. Despite being sidelined in 2001, Gilles Beyer continued his career in his home club, the Flying French, chaired by his brother Alain, until his ouster on Friday. He also carried out several mandates at the executive office of the FFSG until 2018 and organized in the 2010s several gala tours of the French figure skating team.
In the standoff between Maracineanu and Gailhaguet, the leader cannot in any case say that he was unaware of the problems posed by Beyer at the turn of the 2000s, since he was precisely the recipient of the parents’ mail which gave the first alert, as shown in the report from the administrative investigation, of which AFP was aware.
Silence
Since the affair broke out last week, Gilles Beyer, 62, has conceded having had “intimate” and “inappropriate” relations with Sarah Abitbol, offering him “apologies” that the latter refused, awaiting the “second step, “one that will highlight the responsibility of all those who have covered, in the club (the flying French, Editor’s note) and in the federation”.
The scandal has quickly moved into the field of silence that can reign in sexual violence in clubs or sports institutions. Tuesday evening, fifty top athletes, including Teddy Riner, called to “break the silence”, in a forum broadcast on Le Parisien and on France tv sport. Under pressure, will Gailhaguet find the parade again?
It is not a first
It is not the first time it has been in the crosshairs. Splashed by a case of cheating at the Salt Lake City Olympics in 2002, he had been banned from any role in international skating for three years. He also had to resign in 2004 from the presidency of the FFSG, after a report by the Court of Auditors denouncing management drifts, but he had found the head of the federation in 2007.
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