The French Rugby Federation presidential elections, how does it work ?

Florian Grill et Didier Codorniou, les deux candidats à la présidence à la FFR. MIDI LIBRE – JEAN-MICHEL MART ET MICHAEL ESDOURRUBAILH

Since Wednesday, the campaign for the presidency of the French Rugby Federation has ended. The two candidates, Florian Grill and Didier Codorniou, two profiles at opposite ends of the spectrum, have completed their tour of France. They agree on many issues: relaunching rugby from the grassroots by focusing on amateurs and their infrastructure, promoting women's rugby, installing a new framework within the French teams and financially restoring the Federation. But how do elections work??

Who votes??

Public trials do not have the same significance between an election for the country's presidency and that of the French Rugby Federation. Here, it is not the citizens or the FFR members who vote, but the presidents or representatives of the 1900 French clubs. They have from October 18 at 8am until October 19 at 12pm to vote, by electronic ballot.

But each representative will not have the same weight in this election. Indeed, a club has a number of votes proportional to its number of members. A scale is set by the FFR: an affiliated sports association with 0 to 14 licensees has no votes, from 15 to 25 licensees, only one vote, from 26 to 150 licensees, one additional vote for each group of 25 licensees, from 151 to 400 licensees, one additional vote for each group of 50 licensees, and beyond 400 licensees, one additional vote for each group of 100 licensed. 

"Ovale Ensemble (Florian Grill's group) operated with eleven elected members out of forty on the steering committee, and with three leagues out of eighteen. The transmission belts over the first year were not perfect. The objective of this campaign is to win strongly to have real democratic legitimacy, then to continue with the regional leagues. If we want to reform rugby, and we have to do it, to straighten out rugby from the bottom up, it is essential that we have aligned regional leagues, that we have elected representatives in the Federation”, explains Florian Grill.

What do the polls say ?

Several polls have appeared in the press in recent weeks. The one from Midi Olympique, published on October 7, indicates that 51.3% of clubs voted in favor of Florian Grill, and 28.9% for Didier Codorniou. The undecided rate was 19.8%. This consultation was conducted with 341 clubs.

Figures very different from the results communicated by Codorniou's team at the beginning of the month: 41.5% for Codorniou, 37% for Grill and 21.5% undecided.

Why was there no debate between the two candidates??

Several media outlets tried to organize a debate between Florian Grill and Didier Codorniou, to pit program against program. The Grill clan would have accepted. The Codorniou clan declined. The mayor of Gruissan did not necessarily want to politicize these elections and add fuel to the fire after the various affairs that French rugby experienced last summer, he told Actu Rugby.

What did Grill do for fifteen months?

Elected on June 14, 2023 against a backdrop of controversy with Bernard Laporte, Florian Grill occupied the field during his fifteen months at the head of the FFR. “Amateur rugby is in a bad way. We need to launch a Marshall Plan on facilities. Which we have done, since we have invested 20 million to have women's changing rooms, expand club houses, rugby schools, and handrails. Sometimes, the facilities date back to the 70s. We have also added eight additional French championship titles for territorial rugby, because village rugby is disappearing,” he notes.

What else ? “There is an emergency on the school level. Rugby has disappeared a lot. We gave away 35,000 balls at the start of the school year. We have also found a new insurance for French rugby, even more interesting. “60,000 volunteers have been allowed to take advantage of the Federation's civil liability for free. The project is colossal,” he concludes.