Less than two years after her election, the president of the French Olympic and Sports Committee (CNOSF) Brigitte Henriques resigned from her post on Thursday, a coup de theater fourteen months before the Paris Olympics to try to save an institution plunged into crisis since over a year and a half.
“She no longer had a choice”, reacted to AFP a president of a federation present in the hall of the Maison du sport français during a general assembly which was eagerly awaited and during which Brigitte Henriques announced her resignation.
Internal conflicts and rivalries got the better of the former vice-president of the French Football Federation (FFF), 51, in open war for months with her predecessor Denis Masseglia, and who faced a core of opponents .
After the opening speech by the Minister of Sports Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, saying that she was concerned with “bringing back serenity and collective interest”, the president then spoke to the members of the CNOSF.
She detailed the results of her action before announcing her resignation which will be effective on June 29, a scenario that few had predicted, as Brigitte Henriques had repeated that she would not consider resigning despite the numerous episodes of crises having marked her term of office.
The secretary general of the body, the former fencer Astrid Guyart, will take over until the election of a new president “in the next three months”, specifies a press release from the CNOSF.
Low blow
This resignation should open a new page for an institution crossed for more than a year and a half by many turbulences, between complaints, threats of complaints, low blows and revelations of email exchanges in the press…
The eviction in September 2022 of Henriques’ former right-hand man, Didier Seminet, had triggered this deep crisis from which the institution never really recovered.
At the end of 2022, the president had retired for several weeks to rest, very affected by this situation. But on his return, the climate has not changed and it has even worsened considerably in recent days with the announcement by Denis Masseglia of an upcoming complaint to the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF) for breach of trust targeting the mandate of Brigitte Henriques.
Brigitte Henriques and Didier Séminet had filed a complaint against each other, leading to the opening at the end of March of two investigations by the Paris prosecutor’s office and entrusted to the Paris judicial police.
The proximity to the Paris Olympics and this never-ending crisis worry many players in French sport.
The French Olympic Committee must “come together” and “bounce back”, reacted the Minister of Sports, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, in a statement to AFP.
“There is no winner today”, she said, but there can be “a victory, that of an ethical and democratic leap forward”, she added, specifying that she invited the ministry the executive office of the body “Tuesday evening” in order to “take stock”.
In addition to the French National Olympic and Sports Committee, other federations have experienced or are going through serious crises such as that of football, whose president Noël Le Graët was forced to resign for accusations of sexist harassment, or even that of rugby, which lost his boss Bernard Laporte, sentenced to two years in prison suspended for corruption.