It’s time for the final blows of the rackets in the cauldron of Bercy. After thirty-eight years in the emblematic enclosure of 12e district of the capital, the Paris Masters 1000 will take up residence in the fall of 2025 at Paris La Défense Arena, in Nanterre, the largest concert hall in Europe and therefore more in line with the standards of this category of tournaments, just below Grand Slams.
Read the story | Article reserved for our subscribers Tennis: Leconte, Forget, Pioline, Tsonga… they tell “their” Bercy, between arms of honor, ice rink and “monumental fiesta”
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But in the bays this week, another “match” absorbs elected officials and volunteers of the French Tennis Federation (FFT): the election of its president. Club presidents count for half of the votes and league and committee leaders for the second. The vote began in September and will end during the elective general assembly on December 14.
Elected for the first time in 2021, Gilles Moretton (66 years old) is a candidate to succeed him at the head of the richest federation in France (490 million euros in turnover in 2024). He is opposed to Germain Roesch, who for four years has led the powerful Ile-de-France league – the largest in terms of number of licensees and votes.
The current vice-president of the FFT in charge of social responsibility was among Gilles Moretton’s supporters during the previous campaign. The former player (65e world in 1981) then embodied the change supposed to definitively turn the page on Bernard Giudicelli, after four years of a mandate resembling a “hyper-presidency”.
This is precisely the same grievance that Germain Roesch formulates today against Gilles Moretton, of whom he denounces “omnipotence, autocracy itself”. “You can join someone and discover the person later…, assures the 65-year-old outsider to justify this turnaround. I have issues with both the person and the way the program was implemented. » The former double Alsace track cycling champion, who caught the tennis bug by registering his two children, advocates “participatory governance, where everyone can give their opinion without fear and which allows contradiction”.
Moretton surprised by this candidacy
The management of the move from the Bercy tournament convinced him to launch into the battle – he has been officially a candidate since June 19. According to Germain Roesch, the decision to migrate to the northwest of the capital was taken by “two employees and the president”without consulting elected officials and club presidents. False, retorts Gilles Moretton. “There was a process to say: we are launching the study, it was done by all the technical teams of the federation and not by Moretton alone,” fumes the president, convinced that Bercy was definitely cramped.
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