The former leader, who headed the French Football Federation from 1994 to 2005, died on Tuesday.
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He had been the boss of French football during the 1998 World Cup. Claude Simonet died at the age of 92, Tuesday March 15, according to our information. Leader for more than thirty years, the latter had served as president of the French Football Federation, from February 1994 to February 2005.
Associated with the first coronation of the Blues in the World Cup, he retired from business at the end of his presidency, which ended in a scandal. Accused of having concealed a deficit of around 14 million euros in the accounts of the FFF, he was sentenced in 2007 to a six-month suspended prison sentence for “forgery, use of forgery and obstruction of the mission of the auditor”.
Born in Mortagne-au-Perche (Orne), Claude Simonet had a career as a football player as a goalkeeper between 1946 and 1958, with some incursions at the professional level, with FC Nantes in particular, between 1955 and 1960. He even became a military international in 1951. As president of the “3F”, it is to him that we owe the maintenance of Aimé Jacquet at the head of the Blues in 1998. Under his mandate, the team of France gleaned a title of world champion (1998) and a title of European champion (2000). Since his conviction, the tenth president in the history of the FFF has been retiring in Nantes with his family.