A page is turning at the head of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine Football League. After his election on November 9, the new president, the former Girondins de Bordeaux player, François Grenet will meet his first steering committee this Friday in Angoulême to set up his new governance.
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The provisional administrator will therefore put an end this Thursday to his mission, triggered by the suspension by the FFF of the former president for 8 years, the former international referee, originally from Limoges, Saïd Ennjimi, who decided to now devote to his professional activities.
“I regret not having been able to finish my mandate normally”recognizes Saïd Ennjimi, first president for eight years of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine Football League created in 2017 after the merger of the Aquitaine and Center-West Leagues, following the creation of the new large region, a year earlier .
On January 21, 2017 Saïd Ennjimi was elected with 65% of the votes and re-elected in November 2020, during a dematerialized vote taking into account the Covid health context, with 61.6% of the votes.
The former international referee, originally from Limoges and now aged 51, recognizes that he “his share of responsibility in the situation of recent months” but he regrets that there was “too many ego wars, in a conflict of electoral origin, where the districts wanted to take control of the League”.
Saïd Ennjimi was the president of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine Football League for 8 years.
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© France Télévisions
In 8 years of presidency, Saïd Ennjimi, with a controversial personality, found himself in conflict with two very close former people, his former right-hand man Christian Combaret, unsuccessful candidate for the presidency of the League in 2020 against him, and Matthieu Rabby , at the origin of the procedures of recent months.
He also had to face a controversy over his salary and a preliminary investigation in 2019, notably for fraud.
Saïd Ennjimi explains: “The merger of the two former Leagues was very difficult to achieve, notably with the districts of the former Aquitaine waiting for a financial rebalancing in their favor and the Federation used undemocratic means to impose its choices and weaken, because she never tolerated me refusing that the League belongs to her.” And he concedes: “In this context, I must not have had the right profile.” Saïd Ennjimi filed a complaint against the FFF for harassment.
Last May, the federal disciplinary commission of the FFF decided to suspend Saïd Ennjimi as a precautionary measure, for having refused to submit to an audit commissioned by the executive committee and a provisional administrator was appointed.
The Federation had been alerted by a letter notably signed by Matthieu Rabby, former president of the Pyrénées-Atlantique district and unsuccessful candidate for president of the League, about alleged irregularities and dysfunctions.
The former referee believes that “it is the electoral context which is at the origin of this approach”.
Saïd Ennjimi was “in favor of an electronic vote to appoint the new president in order to obtain greater participation and a more democratic result, less influenced by district presidents, the latter being in favor of a face-to-face vote”.
Finally the ballot combined the two formulas and on November 9, at the Palais des Congrès in Bordeaux, François Grenet was narrowly elected, at 49 years old, president of the League with 50.7% of the votes, by the leaders of the 1300 clubs in the region, representing more than 200,000 members.
The former defender of the Girondins de Bordeaux, champion of France in 1999, finalist of the UEFA Cup in 1996, was only 90 votes ahead of his opponent, who had the support of 10 of the 12 presidents of district.
Matthieu Rabby had described Zinédine Zidane’s former teammate as “pilot fish by Saïd Ennjimi”, a presentation that the former president contests, without hiding that François Grenet was in his eyes “the best candidate” and which François Grenet himself describes as “political strategy on the part of his adversaries”.
The new president recognizes that “it was Saïd Enjimmi who suggested that he return to amateur football, as project manager, to take care of the training of educators, the monitoring of youth teams and the organization of summer courses”a mission interrupted at the start of the year to devote itself to the elections.
At the end of his professional career which ended at OGC Nice in 2006, François Grenet left the world of football to become a general insurance agent in Bordeaux.
The first meeting of the new steering committee of the League on Friday at its Charente headquarters of Puymoyen will therefore represent a new departure after months of conflict, François Grenet being elected for four years.
As planned, Gilles Bouard, former regional technical advisor from Charente-Martime will be deputy president. The other members of the office and in particular the general secretary and the treasurer will be designated on this occasion.
The steering committee is made up of 32 members, 20 elected club representatives and the 12 district presidents who are ex officio members.
Concerning the old tensions between the League and the districts, the new president believes that today “Everyone is in a positive state of mind, and personal interests and old resentments have been put aside.”
Financially, the Football League would present “an explanation deficit of 1.3 million euros” according to the provisional administrator, as evidenced by the minutes of the last management committee meeting on October 28, on a total budget of 11.3 million euros.
Saïd Ennjimi does not dispute this figure and on the contrary he accepts it: “It is a deliberate deficit. I have chosen to return to the clubs the surpluses that we have made over seven years, in the form of an end-of-term distribution, by purchasing 1 million euros worth of small equipment, balls, jerseys, water bottles for example. Today more than half of the clubs in New Aquitaine, 700 out of 1300, have fewer than 100 members, and this rural football needs help from the League. Given the temporary suspension decided by the FFF, the clubs have not yet received this material and we have had to spend several thousand euros in storage costs unnecessarily. We have also committed 200,000 euros to the training of FFF agents. League We have therefore taken from our reserves and the proposed budget presented for this 2024/2025 season is in balance.
From now on Saïd Ennjimi devotes himself to his business, in particular his accounting firms and he is an arbitration consultant for the L’Equipe channel.
