While the results of the elections will be known on Saturday December 14, the current president is seeking a new term. He spoke to franceinfo.
“I’ve been on the League tour in recent days, almost 18 or 19 clubs visited, it’s a pace worse than that of a footballer (laughter)”. Philippe Diallo is in the home stretch of his campaign. Big smile, in a suit, he receives franceinfo in his office, boulevard de Grenelle, in Paris, at the headquarters of the French Football Federation.
At the head of the Federation, first on an interim basis since January 2023 after the Noël Le Graët affair, then fully elected president in June 2023, the 61-year-old man took up the game of a position coveted by a another candidate, Pierre Samsonoff, 47 years old, former general director of the Amateur Football League.
With more than 2.3 million members, the FFF is an exposed, full-time job, where you have to manage the visible part – the French teams – and the submerged part of the iceberg. “Recently, I was in Angers for the French women’s team match, and I went to visit the Croix Blanche d’Angers team, a women’s section which plays in Division 3”details Philippe Diallo.
“They didn’t have hot water in the locker room. That’s also the reality, and my role is to act as an intermediary, to relay with local elected officials.” Better redistribution to amateur clubs, by significantly increasing the budget, is one of the objectives of Philippe Diallo, who spoke for a few minutes.
franceinfo: After 18 months at the head of the FFF, what assessment do you make?
Philippe Diallo : I wanted these 18 months at the head of the presidency to be a useful time. At the end of 2024, I think I can say that this time has been useful because in this period of time, we have broken the record for licensees with 2.4 million, including 250,000 women. This is also a record. This year we managed to donate 106 million euros to amateur football, which is another record. We negotiated the renewal of the contract with our equipment supplier Nike and obtained perhaps the most important equipment contract in the world.
We are talking about more than 100 million euros per season, over the next 10 years…
-We are in this order of magnitude (smiles). I think that today the Federation has restored its image. We have peaceful governance. And we have very high level sporting results. With just one goal, the French men’s team would have finished the year at the top of the FIFA rankings, therefore the best team in the world. Our futsal, for its first participation in a World Cup, was in the semi-final. Our women were in the Nations League final for the first time. It is a sporting result which shows that French football, thanks to its training, which continues from year to year, continues to have a very high performance at the international level.
We have also, I think, strengthened the solidity of the Federation’s economic model. Since today, we have a form of visibility over the next ten years with a prospect of growth, so that means for our amateur clubs, for our football, an ability to come and support our clubs everywhere in the territory so that They continue their work of welcoming our millions of licensees in good conditions.
“We are targeting 500,000 licensees by 2028.”
Philippe Dialloat franceinfo
What do you think will be the challenges ahead, and what are your objectives?
The challenges are multiple. In women’s football, we have just launched the Women’s Professional Football League (LFFP). We also set a very ambitious objective for the base of 500,000 members, i.e. a doubling of the number of young girls who played football. We will launch within two years – the objective is 2026/2027 – a professional Ligue 3 under the aegis of the Federation.
Initially, I said that the conditions were not met, some believed that I was opposed to it, that was not the case. There, the conditions are there, but it takes at least two years to find a namer, sponsors, a broadcaster. It is work similar to that of the LFFP. And we can also think about regulation. Maybe a salary cap, see to what extent we can also put local players forward. We are going to significantly increase aid to our amateur clubs. Very concretely, we want to increase the aid given to our amateur clubs from 100 to nearly 150 million euros in the long term. Very important perspectives and which we will have to collectively carry out through very precisely defined consultation, where the needs are felt. That is to say that there is a real trickle-down which will allow over a mandate to ensure that, among our 12,500 clubs, all have received direct or indirect aid from the Federation.
