This is the tale of ‘The Old Man who can’t See’: a French autocrat, adorned with Napoleonic complexities, was handed his Waterloo by two women. At 81, after 12 years at the helm of French football, he resigned yesterday, only to assume a new assignment next week. You guessed it: at Infantino’s FIFA.
Noël le Graët (nicknamed NLG), 81, was president of the 3Fs – Football Federation of France – until yesterday. He was re-elected to office with a remarkable result of 73% of the vote only in 2021. And even his staunchest of enemies recognize that in terms of footballing success, he did well. Or rather: the footballers did well. He gave them the tools – but he gave his staffers quite a bit more than that, it seems.
Two reports broke this autocratic camel’s back: one by the French Inspectorate General for Education, Sport and Research (IGESR) submitted to Sports Minister Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, and a second preliminary report delivered by the Paris Prosecutor’s Office, which is as unhelpful as the other.
The worst of it all, are the statements made by the octogenarian’s own Director General, Florence Hardouin, who’s apparently had enough, after years of service ‘under’ NLG and launched an astonishing amount of accusations against her former employer, after she was punished and cast side. She had joined the FFF in 2013.
While the two reports concur that NLG’s managerial conduct was autocratic and lacking of any and all sensibilities, Hardouin claimed that he “sacrificed” her (others would say threw her to the wolves) and that she was the victim of “sexual and moral harassment”. I hear ‘Me-too’ moving, do you?
The sexual and moral harassment issue is prominent in both reports. The IGESR states that “NLG no longer has the necessary legitimacy to administer and represent French Football”. It charges – very much like Hardouin – that “the excessive consumption of alcohol in the workplace, the autocratic centralisation of (managerial) power, the control of media appearances and his inappropriate conduct towards women,” have led to the failed governance of French Football. The first audit triggered the Paris Prosecutors to commence a preliminary investigation, which takes into account Hardouin’s allegations and accusations that Le Graët’s conduct was best qualified as one of sexual and moral harassment.
The reports were filed in mid-February, and NLG resigned yesterday, February 28, but not without launching a broadside against both women and both reports.
He says he will contest the audit report in court since it serves to defame him. He speaks of a “a political and media cabal” and expects to receive “moral reparations” from the French State. “The female Sports Minister has violated her obligations of impartiality” he says, and he adds that he spoke to French President Macron “at 4pm on Monday” who told him that “he was a formidable leader”. Hmm.
NLG associates in the French Executive Committee (the ‘comex’) have also offered a few bits and pieces about him: “The millionaire ‘patron’ had a calculator in his head instead of a brain. He was a one-man-show all along, power-hungry and convinced that every problem could be resolved by ‘an arrangement’ of sorts.” The same source says that Le Graët was “a true political animal in football”.
But apparently he was more. Much more.
Hardouin’s claim that she was the victim of sexual and moral harassment by NLG for years on end, is of course denied by him. But her lawyers have charged that his humiliating, insulting and sexist conduct in her regard, which resulted in character assassination and his multiple inappropriate comments about her physical appearance, all very unwelcome – and often under the influence of alcohol – led to him inviting her for private dinners at multiple occasions and that he questioned her regularly about the most intimate aspects of her private life. Hardouin speaks of a “general context of sexual violence at the FFF”.
So, NLG is gone, Hardouin is humiliated, the Sports Minister will be sued and – and nothing is resolved. But is that all?
This writer has spoken to a young lady, one third of The Great’s age. While I won’t be naming names, I can share that she is outraged. Not only because Le Graët misunderstood the reality that at his age he’s not the prime choice for a late twenty-something of the opposite sex, but that he is so misguided as to assume that his position of “power” in football would make an attractive young woman fold and succumb to his questionable advances because she, too, works in football (and he can use that as leverage, he thought).
The young lady I spoke to does not work at the FFF but in French football. And his advances were as disgusting as the sexual assault that resulted from his perfectly unwanted meandering hands. And here’s the thing: she is not alone. And Hardouin is neither.
What also deserves attention in this sordid tale of ‘he said, she said’, is Le Graët’s bold-faced conduct that deserves more scrutiny. As does FIFA’s.
“I absolutely won’t be leaving football,” he said yesterday. “I am going to be the right hand of the FIFA President, Infantino, in Paris. I will leave the FIFA Council and I’m no longer a candidate. I will be working with Africa for the development of football on behalf of the FIFA president.”
If you ever heard scary shit, this takes the cherry. But hey, it’s FIFA. It’s neo-colonialism. And the French were always proficient at it.
All this FIFA stuff, the good old man will be doing for free of course – only his expenses will be paid. His base is one of the most fabulous buildings in Paris, the Hôtel de la Marine, an iconic monument on the Place de la Concorde which became the headquarters of France’s navy ministry for over 200 years. From his office window he can see a fully erect symbol of ‘French’ grandeur: the Luxor Obelisk (as so many things, stolen from Africa in colonial times). Ah… and before I forget: today it is, among other things, FIFA’s Paris “dépendance” where 70 staffers sit and work in a palace renovated by the Qatari royals, and which houses the quite fabulous Al Thani collection. But the fact that the square used to be called Place de la Révolution, where King Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette and Maximilien Robespierre were executed, bodes badly for NLG and FIFA in case any of them believe in omens…
So, French Football’s Napoleon did better than his historic prdecessor: instead of Saint Helena, he moves to the Concorde. His Waterloo, two strong women, will be left behind for, who knows, younger fare at FIFA’s Paris dépendance…?
When Radio Monte Carlo (RMC) quoted one Eric Borghini, Member of the FFF’s executive committee who said a couple of days ago: “The president (Le Graët) was appointed to join FIFA by Infantino to manage the FIFA office in Paris”, it was a bit out of context. NLG was actually appointed in January 2022 to the cushy post, having been the useful go-between for Infantino with Macron to secure a tax holiday for FIFA and it staffers.
In light of the man’s most recently revealed conduct, this is flagrantly inexplicable though: “He was appointed for his competence, his expertise and his experience.” Why not be honest and say he was appointed out of nepotistic gratitude by a bent organisation that owed him?
Relax, that’s obviously a rhetorical question.
My friend, the unnamed young lady who works in football, had this to say about it: “C’est à vomir”. And trust me: she and Hardouin are not at alone with the urge of wanting to puke.
A man who disgraced himself by his conduct that would have led to his public flagellation by the ‘Me too’ movement in many self-respecting societies, is apparently “competent” to head FIFA’s Paris office.
The old guy who fashions himself as the irresistible young stallion (the mirror cries), is employed for his “expertise” and “experience”. Expertise in what, one might ask, with all tongues in cheeks. And ‘experience’ in the horizontal arts, maybe?
When the very much married English Lord Triesman (a rare feat for a former communist activist to be appointed to the House of Lords, isn’t it?) was caught divulging bidding lies and tales of imaginary bad men during his reign as Chairman of The English FA (note that it is always ‘The’ with a capital ‘T’ by design), while engaging in unbecoming pillow-talk with a very much younger lady, he was swiftly evaporated from English Football – kicked out.
I’m not certain why the then FIFA President, Blatter, didn’t immediately appoint him to some FIFA Committee the day after his fall from grace (as Infantino would have?) – probably because he simply couldn’t stand him. Who could? What I AM certain of, is that old Blatter also walked a tight rope at times: “In an interview with Portuguese newspaper Expresso, US goal keeper Hope Solo said in 2013: ‘I had Sepp Blatter grab my ass.’ Blatter, 81 at the time -what is it with these octogenarians! – of course denied the incident took place, with his spokesman telling BBC Sport: ‘This allegation is ridiculous.’”
But Infantino is solid in his indescribable set of delusions: first, he doesn’t ascertain that one of the biggest sexual predators to ever grease football, the crooked Haitian FA President who impregnated numbers of young Haitian girls – footballers! – and who was accused of rape by a large number of girls, was kicked out of the game forever. Admittedly, FIFA
tried at first, only to be overturned by that laughable club of equally laughable all-male FIFA-sycophants at CAS, who ruled that the witness statements of the raped and impregnated girls were not reliable (!!) – only for the girls who had come forward now literally risking their lives as a result of it. Maybe FIFA and CAS will repent when a girl gets murdered by the Haitian’s henchmen?
So, here we have it in a nutshell: the FFF President quits over sexual misconduct (inter alia), and the very day of his demise, Infantino welcomes him to run its FIFA Paris office. Although the appointment was made a year before, the right thing to do was to nix the appointment – but nixing and withdrawal are not things GI Joe does well (one hears).
C’est à vomir, she said, when we spoke. I think it’s more than that.
Weinstein will look at the world from behind bars for the rest of his miserable life of abuse of young women. Epstein, another misogynist, has apparently killed himself, they say, over his own disgusting conduct. Meanwhile GI Joe, a bit like a monarch (from hell?) anoints a greasebag and offers him his kingly compassion and pardon?
We don’t usually recommend that people should resign. But then, the people we tend to focus on are not usually sickening remnants of a moral bin “d’ordure”.
Infantino, who has an interesting past himself concerning a woman in his employ (to put it mildly), may have felt sorry for the Graët guy, knowing how painful it is to get caught with your pants down. Or, he just doesn’t give a shit for ethics and morality – which would explain quite a few of his actions over the past few years (Ahmad Ahmad comes to mind, but to name one, and now of course The Haitian).
What Infantino should have done yesterday, is thank Le Graët for his services and wish him well for his future endeavours. And not have the man run FIFA’s Paris operations henceforth.
Or maybe he’s just so removed from reality that his megalomania took over yet again, and dictates his actions: ‘I can employ anybody I want and the entire world can just f off’, seems to be his motto.
It’s time for Infantino to go.
Even if a very high-ranking football administrator told me the other day – when asked how on earth it was possible that nobody challenged the guy for the FIFA presidency – “it is not in our interest to fight Infantino. With him ‘in charge’, we can pretty much do what we want and develop football the way we see fit. He’s a nonentity that nobody takes seriously, and that’s ok for now.”
This Infantino last straw, to employ a guy who was kicked out for sexual misconduct and other niceties, is to offer him a FIFA post for his “expertise and experience”, will pass GI Joe like all the other last straws of the past: nothing will happen.
He will be re-elected in spring for the third time, unopposed and with acclamation, because football is stuck in an old man’s world where women are objects at best, and where money talks.
It is a sad reality we live in and “C’est à vomir”.
(sources: Le Monde/Rémi Dupré/RMC/FFF agents/individual non-disclosed sources)
James Dostoyevsky was a Washington-based author until the end of 2018, where he reported on sports politics and socio-cultural topics. He returned to Europe in 2019 and continues to follow football politics – presently with an emphasis on the Middle East, Europe and Africa. Contact him at moc.l1716339676labto1716339676ofdlr1716339676owedi1716339676sni@o1716339676fni1716339676