Noël Le Graët, French football's most powerful administrator, continued his rearguard action on Thursday to remain in his job despite a government audit damning his sleazy late-night texts to female employees, lax management and cronyism.
A day after the report into the machinations at the Fédération Française de Football, (FFF) was published, Le Graët's lawyer, Florence Bourg, hit out at the findings.
"He has a feeling of total injustice, and rightly so, because this report and this investigation have come about in a scandalous way," she told French broadcaster RTL.
The three investigators from the General Inspectorate of Education, Sport and Research (IGESR) interviewed more than 100 people during their four-month inquiry.
They were told of late-night text messages to women whose jobs depended on Le Graët. Some were ambiguous and others were clearly sexual, the inquiry uncovered.
But Bourg disputed the findings. "I'm sorry to say that there are no clearly sexual SMS in the report."
Change
Le Graët took over from Fernand Duchaussoy as FFF president in June 2011. The 81-year-old is credited with boosting the FFF's coffers with a series of lucrative sponsorship deals. France's fortunes on the playing fields have also flourished.
Under the World Cup winning skipper Didier Deschamps as head coach, France reached the finals at the 2016 European championships, claimed the 2018 World Cup and the 2021 Nations League. They were runners-up in the 2022 World Cup final.
However, despite a litany of gaffes, Le Graët managed to retain one of the country's most prestigious administrative jobs.
His hold over the FFF started to weaken last month following a radio interview with RMC in which he adopted a condescending tone towards the former France international Zinedine Zidane.
When asked if Zidane – who coached Real Madrid to 11 trophies including three consecutive Champions Leagues – had approached him about taking over as France boss, Le Graët told the interviewer he would not have bothered to take the call.
Sorry
Even though Le Graët apologised for comments that he accepted as ill-advised, the blunder opened the door to the simmering resentment.
He stepped aside as president on 11 January until the official publication of the IGESR inquiry.
Le Graët – technically the boss again – began to gauge the level of support among members of the FFF's executive committee – known as the Comex.
Last Friday, the body said it wanted to find out who had been leaking details of the IGESR's provisional report to the media.
In one of the leaks, the Comex was described as a group of people who simply agreed with Le Graët since he had picked them.
Manoeuvre
"As stipulated by the IGESR, this provisional report and its information had to respect a strict confidentiality and not be disclosed during this phase," said an FFF statement.
The move is likely to be viewed as a sub plot to the high intensity drama at the top of the organisation that has been overseeing amateur and professional football in France since 1919.
France's sports minister, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, has led the calls for Le Graët to resign.
Were he to bow to the pressure, it would prevent a sustained examination of a dysfunctional organisation where employees were ritually humiliated in meetings and executives traded invectives as well as vulgar sexist insults.
"He will make his decision quietly and certainly not under pressure from the sports minister," Bourg said. "He will take his time.
"This hasn't been an inspection report," Bourg added. "It has been an execution report."
