After the sports ministry, after the international federation, after the National Rugby League, after the opposition, it is the turn of the own ethics committee of the French Rugby Federation (FFR) to push for the resignation of president Bernard Laporte, who was sentenced on Tuesday by the 32nd department of the Criminal Court to a two-year suspended sentence and a two-year ban from any function in rugby for corruption, influence peddling, unlawful taking of interest, misappropriation of company assets and concealment of misappropriation of company assets. At the end of the deliberations, Mr. Laporte’s lawyer announced that his client appealed, which suspends the sentences but does not cancel them, contrary to what the FFR wrote in one of its press releases.
After the meeting on Wednesday and Thursday, the FFR’s ethics committee decided this Friday morning by name to order Mr. Laporte to leave office. The members of the ethics committee could either issue an opinion or advocate a recommendation or issue an injunction. So they chose the third path, the more permanent one.
The Ministry of Sports has been informed of this letter, as has the general secretary of the FFR. The ethics committee considers that it is all the easier for Mr. Laporte to step aside, since he had ensured the creation of the vice-chairman’s position, which at the time was entrusted to Serge Simon. If this order is not followed by effect, the Ethics Committee can seize the FFR’s Disciplinary Committee, which could consider a disciplinary sanction.
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