At 75, after 36 years as president of Olympique Lyonnais then a year as vice-president of the French Football Federation, Jean-Michel Aulas would tick all the boxes of a man removed from “the field”. However, one of the leaders who will have marked the history of French football is closer than we think to the amateur world.
There is no need to get him started on the subject for him to speak with frank passion. Present in Rennes, Friday November 29, as number two on the list of Philippe Diallo – candidate for the presidency of the FFF against Pierre Samsonoff – to meet members of the League of Brittany and its different districts, he speaks .
“I rebuilt my life with my wife who is younger and who has three children, whom I consider dependent on me: two boys aged 10 and 14 and a girl aged 12… And they all play football. » And “step dad” is not limited to taking a taxi from home to the Éveil stadiums from Lyon to Villeurbanne.
“I spend all my Saturday mornings there”
“I serve as an instigator, a guide, and I participate in the life of the club. I spend all my Saturday mornings there, whether with the volunteers at the refreshment bar, the educators or the president. I'm an amateur football fanatic, he assures. It allows me to rediscover this football, a bit in the spirit of OL when I arrived in 1987, when professional football was much less developed. »
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He obviously doesn’t go incognito… “When you have served for 35 years as president in the region’s flagship club, people recognize you”he smiles. Above all, he takes the opportunity to reconnect with football from below, that of the 12,500 amateur clubs in France. “I am in direct contact with the educators, the president, the volunteers… L'Éveil de Lyon still has 1,200 members. And it allows me to know amateur football from an operational perspective, which was not the case. »
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