FFR elections – Behind the scenes of a plebiscite

It’s a score worthy of a banana republicballot stuffing and deportations of opponents excepted, of course. A quasi-plebiscite, in fact. An electoral victory, in short, like French rugby in its contemporary version had never before experienced. It was therefore a little after 1 p.m. on Saturday when the president of the Ethics and Professional Conduct Commission Bernard Foucher, with a black binder under his arm, solemnly descended the steps of the Marcoussis auditorium. There were, around him, a good hundred people: journalists snatched away against their will from the seventh day of Top 14, Florian Grill and thirty of his running mates as well as a handful of club presidents, most of whom came as neighbors , or from the South of the Ile de France. Didier Codorniou? He was 800 kilometers away, in Narbonne and surrounded by his clanprobably already aware that the fate of this election was ultimately decided over the course of a campaign where the Ovale Ensemble collective had swept the territory, holding 250 meetings in recent weeks when the “Little Prince” and his running mates, of whom he is today legitimate to question the involvement, had only held around fifty meetings…

Visibly delighted with the idea that a hundred people and in their wake, a few thousand rugby fans, were hanging on his lips, Bernard Foucher, positioned on the central stage, took his time, created suspense and even allowed himself a short digression. “Is would like to say, as a preamble, that I regrets the tense climate of this campaign, which does not correspond in no way rugby values such that we THE know. This deleterious context has even managed to cast doubt on the electoral operations commission and I deplore this. I hope that from now on, everyone will find the path to appeasement together.”. A first round of applause rang out in the auditorium of the National Rugby Center. When silence returned, the State Councilor then announced in a neutral tone the results of the vote, which sounded like a hurray here, like a donut there: 67.22% for Florian Grill, 22.8% for Didier Codorniou and a participation rate of 85% which Bernard Foucher logically described as “electoral success”so much so that it was thought before this election that the clubs, tired of going to the polls every six months or so, would willingly shun the great mass of “big overcoats”, as they were formerly called.

Opposition elected official, will Codorniou sit on the steering committee?

At that moment in the service and observing Florian Grill, ecstatic or assimilated, heading towards the platform, we finally said two things to ourselves: the first, a sublime caress to the ego, proclaimed that once again, the consultations carried out by Midol this fall with 340 clubs were correct for the third time in a row, when they were nevertheless, upon their publication, accused by some of odious collusion with the power in place. The second was less egocentric: it concluded, in the light of the votes cast, that rugby from below had ultimately never forgiven “Codor” for having left our little world for thirty years to enter, and succeed, in policy. Very quickly, the Little Prince showed elegance, congratulating the winner according to a press release prepared in advance, even wishing his rival everything “possible success in the management and development of professional and amateur rugby”. At the bottom of the document, Didier Codorniou also specified that he would “time for reflection” as to the follow-up to be given to “this adventure”a conclusion which in no way contradicted the rumors according to which “Codor” would not sit probably not on the steering committee, for the next four years…

There was Alsodyears the immediate extension of the proclamation of the resultssmiles and tears. Le stoic delight of the federal boss, first, Florian Grill hammering into the microphone that he was in reality that the modest working man of a cruise ship of 350,000 players and 60,000 volunteers. Lheavy sobthen, of a president indeedt to return tribute to the few anonymous members of the Ovale Ensemble collective who lost their lives over the last fifteen months. The renewed fever, finally, one federal boss at a time”transcended and rinsed” by a muscular, virile and violent campaign, as they are Ultimately always. Had Florian Grill ever doubted this? For having been Pierre Camou’s running mate in 2016, at the time when Serge Simon and Bernard Laporte had decided to spare nothing for the outgoing president, the one who was then the president of the Ligue île de France had often regretted that the Basque, fearing by attacking rugby people to attack rugby itself, ultimately never wanted to return the blows. This time, Grill entered the ring. And left his rival defeated by KO…