Noël Le Graët steps down as president

Noël Le Graët announced on Tuesday February 28th his decision to leave the office of the Executive Committee of the French Football Federation.

Vice President Philippe Diallo will now act as interim president of the FFF until June 10th 2023, the date of the next federal assembly. The Comex of the FFF also accepted the resignation of Jamel Sandjak and thanked him for his service.

The FFF would like to salute the remarkable sporting and economic achievements of Noël Le Graët. Since June 18th 2011, the date of his initial election, the men’s and women's national teams have won 11 titles between them and contested 6 international tournament finals. These excellent results can be attributed to, in particular, an ambitious training policy. Under the leadership of Noël Le Graët, the FFF has supported and strengthened pre-training (26 youth development centres) as well as training in conjunction with professional clubs. France’s training infrastructure is now considered to be one of the best in the world. The development of women's football has also progressed significantly, with a current membership of 206,000, compared with fewer than 90,000 in 2011-2012.

Economic results have also made it possible to double the financial aid given to amateur football, reaching a milestone amount of €104 million this season. This economic success has also made it possible to develop and implement strong educational and civic commitments (the Federal Educational Program, for example) in training structures and amateur clubs throughout France. The FFF is a solid and stable institution that has weathered the recent global health crisis and currently possesses €56 million in equity.

Regarding the audit by the General Inspectorate for Education, Sport and Research (IGESR), the FFF noted that this report does not mention any systemic failure, nor any breach of its missions. The FFF nevertheless notes that this report is based less on objective facts than on assessments which have sometimes led to a disproportionate denigration of the body. 

The FFF also regrets the lack of a real adversarial procedure and the failure to take into account the numerous observations made by the Federation on the subjects concerned in terms of governance, and the fight against sexism and sexual violence, with figures and examples to support this.

The FFF therefore wishes to reaffirm its ongoing commitment against gender based and sexual violence as part of its license protection policy. This commitment was and will remain a priority.

The FFF will also continue to work on reforming its governance under the Law of March 2nd 2022, work that had been undertaken even before the start of the audit.

The FFF, however, undertakes to take note of all the pertinent recommendations of this audit.