Crossed by a deep internal crisis, the French Olympic Committee (CNOSF) had an eventful general assembly on Thursday with the announcement of the resignation of its president, Brigitte Henriques. The Minister of Sports, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, calls on the institution to “bounce back” and “come together” one year from the Paris 2024 Games.
Published on : 25/05/2023 – 11:20Modified : 25/05/2023 – 11:32
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 from her post on Thursday May 25. A coup de theater in full general assembly, 14 months before the 2024 Olympics in Paris, in order to put an end to an internal crisis which has lasted for more than a year and a half, announced the CNOSF.
Internal conflicts and rivalries got the better of the former vice-president of the French Football Federation (FFF), at open war for months with her predecessor Denis Masseglia. The secretary general of the body, Astrid Guyart, will take over until the election of a new president “in the next three months”, specifies the press release from the CNOSF.
“The situation was no longer tenable, she made the right choice,” reacted a federation president present at the time of the announcement of this resignation during a highly anticipated general meeting.
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 an upcoming complaint to the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF) for breach of trust targeting the term of office of Brigitte Henriques.
The eviction in September 2022 of Brigitte Henriques’ former right-hand man, Didier Seminet, had triggered a deep crisis from which the institution never recovered.
The proximity to the Paris Olympics, in fourteen months, and this endless crisis worried many players in French sport.
“This resignation is a way of settling the crisis, and it’s quite noble,” reacted another federation president.
The French Olympic Committee must now “come together” and “bounce back”, reacted the Minister of Sports, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, in a statement sent to Agence France Presse.
With AFP
