With the LFP elections fast approaching, Toulouse FC president Damien Comolli has decided to give his support to the current president Vincent Labrune.
Toulouse FC president Damien Comolli said on Tuesday that he was in favour of the re-election of Vincent Labrune as president of the Professional Football League (LFP), whose general assembly is being held in a week, believing that he “is the best person to embody” the future of French football.
Elected president of the League in 2020, Vincent Labrune has been heavily criticized since the upheavals linked to the allocation of Ligue 1 TV rights to DAZN and beIN Sports for 500 million euros per year, after the failure of the call for tenders launched last year, and the aborted promise of reaching one billion euros.
If he qualified as “cataclysm” the reduction in TV rights, Damien Comolli exonerated Vincent Labrune of all responsibility. “In such a deflationary period, I don’t think we could have had better.”said the president of Téfécé during a press conference.
“I’m not really interested in the debate on the results, what interests me is the future: what we are going to do to make French football more attractive, more competitive and who is going to lead this project. For the moment I haven’t seen a single good idea, I’ve only seen reheated stuff.” he added.
Comolli not attracted by other candidates
“I haven’t seen any ideas that appeal to me.” Comolli repeated a second time without ever mentioning the name of Cyril Linette, the former head of sports at Canal +, L’Equipe and PMU, and main opponent of Vincent Labrune.
Initially rejected, Cyril Linette’s candidacy finally obtained on Monday the second sponsorship necessary to run for president, that of the Union of Football Actors (UAF), bringing together the various “families” (players’ unions, coaches, doctors, referees, administrative staff).
The UAF’s initial refusal to grant him its sponsorship, leaving Vincent Labrune the only candidate, had sparked an outcry and even provoked the intervention of the resigning Minister of Sports, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, according to several sources close to the matter.
Having played for Liverpool, Tottenham, Saint-Étienne and Fenerbahçe, Comolli has also announced that he would be a candidate “to the LFP board of directors” because he thinks he can “to bring something, added value, thanks in particular to the experience accumulated during the many positions I have held in the different clubs I have attended”.
