FFR Presidential Elections: Florian Grill First Dispelled Doubts Before Being Hit by the Summer Storm
|Florian Grill, candidat à sa succession le 19 octobre prochain. Midi Libre – JEAN-MICHEL MART
Élu en juin 2023 après la démission de Bernard Laporte, Florian Grill a l’occasion de réaliser un premier mandat complet de quatre ans.
When he was elected on June 14, 2023, Florian Grill had a mantra: French rugby needs calm. After the affairs surrounding Bernard Laporte, who was forced to resign from the presidency before the end of his term, it was necessary to find some serenity. Calm did not arrive immediately with an intense home World Cup in the fall. Then the spotlight went out for a few months. Just enough time to leave again, every weekend, to the four corners of France to revive amateur rugby, to flirt with the country's institutions.
The situation seemed to be calming down, work was gradually opening up, solutions to fill the structural deficit (40 million euros over two years) of the Federation were beginning to be found. Everything was taking shape. Until the storm this summer. Two players from the French XV accused of gang rape during the tour in Argentina, another who took a video of himself making racist remarks, a 17-year-old who lost his life with the U18 Blues in South Africa… The Federation, undeniably, was singled out. Despite the body's assumption of responsibilities, the events were dramatic. No media release, however dignified, could cure the pain.
“In combat every day”
“I won't hide it from you, I thought about resigning”, confided Florian Grill. But the broad shoulders of this former third row, with origins anchored in Montpellier and the Château de l'Engarran in Lavéune, are solid. “We have been working 24/7 on all subjects […] We are fighting every day so that these tragedies do not call into question what rugby does on a daily basis. I continue to say that if there was more rugby in society, society would be better off”, he said.
Also read: Florian Grill: “We have work to do to get back on track”, Jegou-Auradou affair, amateur rugby and elections, the president of the FFR confides
In contact with amateur rugby almost every weekend, this business leader (his group, CoSpirit, a media agency, is worth 36 million euros) has won over the territory. Not very well-known before his accession to the presidency, Grill managed to chase away his image of the bourgeois « Parigot », displaying his good nature, his convictions, his knowledge of the amateur environment and showing a significant volume of work, surrounded by Jean-Marc Lhermet and Sylvain Doereux.
"I didn't wait for the campaign to go into the field. I've been elected federally for seven years and I've been meeting the clubs", explains the man who is the favorite for his re-election.
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