This Wednesday afternoon, Vincent Labrune, president of the Professional Football League (LFP) will be heard by the senators as part of the information mission on the intervention of investment funds in French professional football. A highly anticipated meeting where the president of the LFP will have to answer numerous questions surrounding the deal between CVC and the body.
“I think you haven’t fully understood what awaits me,” insists Vincent Labrune. Last Friday, at the end of the LFP board of directors meeting, the president of the League spoke to Waldemar Kita, the president of FC Nantes. The latter wanted to schedule a meeting for this Wednesday morning, just before his hearing in the Senate. “That’s all I’m doing, at the moment I’m spending between 4 and 5 hours a day preparing for my hearing. I’m the target,” retorts Labrune, who then describes this hearing before the senators as “extremely important” . And repeats that he must “concentrate” on the “80 questions” from the representatives of the fact-finding mission.
Since the start of this fact-finding mission, the presidents summoned have also been perfectly prepared, with elements of language distilled during the hearings. The presidents in question completely refute the idea that a crisis communications agency would provide them with a list of language elements to deal with senators. “This mission is important for the Senate, the clubs are in a difficult moment, and we do not clearly see the vision of the League with this investment fund. I have a Ligue 2 club in my constituency, it is my favorite club, the president explained to me that the club could be in serious difficulty very quickly, and it is not CVC who is going to inject money into a Ligue 2 club,” confides a senator, a football fan. , but who is not a member of this fact-finding mission.
The agreement with CVC at the heart of the mission
The moment is awaited, on both sides. In the Clémenceau room of the Senate, Vincent Labrune will face the president of the information mission, Laurent Lafon, and the rapporteur of this mission, Michel Savin. This is not the first time that the president of the LFP will cross paths with the two representatives, specialists in sports issues in the Senate. In 2021, Vincent Labrune had already appeared before the Committee on Culture, Education, Communication and Sport on the subject of the commercial company. “He did not leave an unforgettable memory,” recalls a senator present that day.
Senators Lafon and Savin know the “CVC/LFP” file like the back of their hand. In total, more than twenty hearings have been conducted since the start of their work. Some of the witnesses were heard in a “reporter hearing”, behind closed doors. This fact-finding mission has the prerogatives of a commission of inquiry. The two senators therefore have access to all the documents, relating to the deal between the Luxembourg CVC fund and the League, and regularly request copies from the LFP. Since the start, the League has been playing the game. This Wednesday afternoon, the members of the fact-finding mission will try to understand the ins and outs of the agreement reached in 2022 between CVC and the LFP. This deal allowed the investment fund to obtain 13% of the LFP’s commercial revenues against a check for 1.5 billion euros.
Simple question, unclear answer
During their hearing last Thursday, the two CVC representatives were very cautious about the vision of Ligue 1. The company’s investment is nevertheless substantial. Far from the cameras of the information mission, Edouard Conques, one of the directors of CVC, gave an initial trend on the quality of the Ligue 1 product, last Friday, during the board of directors meeting. The manager responded to the presidents by putting the ball back in their court: “To be honest, we are quite disappointed with the lack of progress on the product itself. We do not have enough dialogue on this subject.”
The day before, this same Edouard Conques, accompanied by another leader of the group, found himself facing the two senators from the fact-finding mission. During this exchange, several responses from the two managers of the Luxembourg fund seemed contradictory, in particular that which concerned the salary of Vincent Labrune. Michel Savin asked the two men for an opinion on the remuneration of Vincent Labrune, who is both president of the LFP and the commercial company. The senator from Isère completed his question by asking if the remuneration was re-invoiced to the commercial company. Fairly simple question on paper for two investment specialists.
The two CVC leaders responded in the negative, offering Michel Savin the opportunity to release a document, obtained from the LFP. On this paper, proof that 50% of Labrune’s salary is indeed invoiced to the commercial company. The CVC representatives didn’t know what to say, as if they were extremely surprised when they heard the news. The scene quickly made the rounds on social networks.
An audition “like all the others”
“When you want to drown out the fish on a file, you use the technique of overloading information and figures. This is what the two representatives of CVC tried to do initially during this hearing, that worked on certain points but too bad for them the sequence that we will remember is the non-response on the remuneration of Vincent Labrune”, notes a good connoisseur of the Palais du Luxembourg. Who adds: “In commissions of inquiry, it is often innocuous questions that can lead to a surprising answer, Michel Savin turned the hearing on its head with an innocuous question.”
Vincent Labrune’s hearing is eagerly awaited, even if, on the senators’ side, we would like to reduce the wait around this moment. “I am preparing this hearing of Mr. Labrune like all the others, the same work is carried out for all the hearings of this information mission of the Senate even if it is necessary to take into account the status and the role of the person interviewed”, confides to RMC the rapporteur. Michel Savin specifies that this information mission took office well before the difficult period experienced by French football clubs and the League.
A preliminary investigation still underway
On November 20, the Anti-corruption association AC!! filed a complaint with the PNF for embezzlement of public funds regarding the agreement between the LFP and the CVC investment fund. At the end of March, the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office announced the opening of a preliminary investigation into this deal. Investigations are still ongoing. According to our information, no investigative service has yet been contacted to carry out investigations in this case.
Ligue 1 presidents should continue to parade in front of senators. Last week, a first round table was organized with some of them. Just after Vincent Labrune’s hearing, Waldemar Kita, president of FC Nantes, and Laurent Nicollin, president of Foot Unis and the MHSC, will face the senators. The president of the Canaries is one of the only ones to have asked many questions about the future of French football with this uncertainty around TV rights. Perhaps he will also be vocal about his vision of French football in front of the senators.
