Tuesday, September 06, 2022

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M
French rugby boss Bernard Laporte's graft trial opens

French Rugby Federation President Bernard Laporte (left) will go on trial from Wednesday over corruption and influence-peddling charges revolving around his relationship with billionaire Montpellier owner Mohed Altrad (behind right). | AFP-JIJI


BY JEREMY TORDJMAN
AFP-JIJI
Sep 6, 2022

PARIS – Bernard Laporte, a towering figure in French rugby, goes on trial on Wednesday on charges of corruption and influence-peddling, in a high-profile case making big waves only a year before France hosts the World Cup.

The 58-year-old former France coach is accused of favoritism in awarding a uniform sponsor contract for the national team to close friend Mohed Altrad, the billionaire owner of Top 14 champion Montpellier.

The five officials in the dock also include Claude Atcher, who was recently suspended as managing director of the 2023 Rugby World Cup organization, and French Rugby Federation (FFR) vice-president Serge Simon.

The trial is scheduled to conclude on Sept. 22.

“The accusations against Bernard Laporte are completely trumped-up, notably because everything he did was in the best interest of the federation,” said his lawyer, Jean-Pierre Versini-Campinchi.

But PNF, France’s financial crimes unit, disagrees. Its investigation into the dealings of Laporte, who was minister for sports in president Nicolas Sarkozy’s government from 2007 to 2009, concluded that he was guilty of illegal influence-peddling and passive corruption, mostly for the benefit of Altrad.

The two mens’ friendship and business links are at the heart of the case, which goes back to February 2017 when they signed a deal under which Laporte, then head of the FFR, agreed to appear in Altrad group conferences and sold his image reproduction rights in return for €180,000 euros (then around $190,000).


‘A fighter’


But while that sum was indeed paid to Laporte, prosecutors claim that he never actually provided the services he signed up for.

He did, however, make several public statements backing Altrad and, in March 2017, signed a €1.8-million deal with the businessman, making his eponymous firm the first-ever sponsor to appear on the French national team’s jerseys.

Even now, Altrad’s logo features on team’s shirts thanks to a follow-up deal negotiated by Laporte in 2018, which prosecutors say bears all the hallmarks of corruption.

Laporte is further accused of intervening with French rugby’s federal disciplinary commission, which reduced a fine against an Altrad company from €70,000 to €20,000 after a call from Laporte.

While prosecutors see this and several more incidents is proof of illicit favoritism, Laporte himself claimed that there was no “cause-effect relationship,” and said he himself canceled the contract in the summer of 2017 when press reports began to question the nature of the relationship between the two men.

The trial will also examine the links between Claude Atcher and the FFR from 2017 to 2018 when Atcher’s company, Sport SV, won contracts for four missions, mostly linked to the French bid for the 2023 Rugby World Cup.

Prosecutors say one of those missions, worth €21,000, was never carried out, but Laporte still signed off on a bonus payment to Sport XV of €30,000.

Prosecutors say the deals swindled the FFR out of an estimated total of €80,000.

Five years of investigation have shaken the French rugby world, and hurt Laporte’s reputation, but he still got himself re-elected as FFR boss at the end of 2020.

“He is confident,” his lawyer Versini-Campinchi said. “His mindset is that of a fighter.”

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