14 months before the Paris Olympics, the president of the French Olympic Committee resigns

2023-05-25T09:40:40.870Z

Highlights: The French Olympic Committee announced the resignation of its vice-president on Thursday. The decision was made after a meeting of the board of directors, which was held in Paris. The president of the committee, Jean-Claude Van Damme, said he was resigning because of a lack of confidence in his successor. He said the decision to resign was made in light of a series of events that have taken place in the last few months, including the death of former president Jacques Chirac. The resignation of Van Damm is the result of an investigation by the European Commission.

Crossed by a deep internal crisis, the French Olympic Committee (CNOSF) experienced Thursday an eventful general assembly with the announcement of the resignation of its president, Brigitte Henriques. The...

It was a situation that many in the sport considered untenable. The president of the French Olympic Committee (CNOSF) Brigitte Henriques, elected in June 2021, resigned Thursday, May 25 from her post, a coup de théâtre in full general assembly, fourteen months before the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, in order to put an end to an internal crisis that has lasted for more than a year and a half, announced the CNOSF.

The conflicts and internal rivalries got the better of the former vice-president of the French Football Federation (FFF), in open war for months with her predecessor Denis Masseglia. The secretary general of the body, Astrid Guyart, will ensure the interim until the election of a new president "in the next three months," said the statement of the CNOSF.

"The situation was no longer tenable, she made the right choice," responded a federation president present at the time of the announcement of this resignation at a highly anticipated general assembly.

For more than a year and a half, the CNOSF has been going through an unprecedented crisis, between threats of complaints, low blows and revelations of e-mail exchanges in the press...

Towards the end of a bad soap opera?

This climate had become even heavier in recent days with the announcement by Denis Masseglia of a forthcoming filing of a complaint to the National Financial Prosecutor's Office (PNF) for breach of trust against the mandate of Brigitte Henriques.

The ouster in September 2022 of Brigitte Henriques' former right-hand man, Didier Seminet, triggered a deep crisis from which the institution has never recovered.

The proximity to the Olympic Games in Paris, in fourteen months, and this crisis that did not end worried many actors of French sport.

"This resignation is a way to settle the crisis, and it's quite noble," said another federation president.

The French Olympic Committee must now "come together" and "bounce back", responded the Minister of Sports, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, in a statement sent to Agence France Presse.

With AFP

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14 months before the Paris Olympics, the president of the French Olympic Committee resigns

Towards the end of a bad soap opera?

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