D-Day for French supremo in corruption trial
SPOTLIGHT: A French court is set to deliver its verdict in the trial of Bernard Laporte on Tuesday.
The towering figure in French rugby was on trial for corruption and influence-peddling less than a year before France hosts the World Cup.
The 58-year-old French Rugby Federation (FFR) president is accused of favouritism in awarding a shirt sponsor contract for the national side to a close friend, Mohed Altrad, the billionaire owner of Top 14 champions Montpellier.
At the trial’s close in September, prosecutors said they were seeking a three-year prison sentence for Laporte of which he should serve one behind bars, and the two others on probation.
They asked for his alleged accomplice Altrad to be handed the same punishment.
In addition, the prosecution called for a two-year ban on Laporte having any role in French rugby, and on Altrad running a business.
In France, one year terms for such offences are usually converted to house arrest or the wearing of an electronic bracelet without the person actually going to prison.
According to the charges, which his defence said were “trumped up”, Laporte carried out illegal influence-peddling and passive corruption, mostly for the benefit of Altrad.
The two men’s friendship and business links are at the heart of the case.
It goes back to February 2017 when they signed a deal under which Laporte, head of the FFR, agreed to appear in Altrad group conferences, and sold his image reproduction rights, in return for €180,000 (then around US$190,000).
But while that sum was indeed paid to Laporte, prosecutors claim that he never actually provided the services he signed up for.
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‘Judicial error’
He did, however, make several public statements backing Altrad and, in March 2017, signed a €1.8-million deal with the businessman making his eponymous firm the first-ever sponsor to appear on the French national team’s jerseys.
Even now, Altrad’s logo features on the shirts thanks to a follow-up deal negotiated by Laporte in 2018 and which prosecutors say bears all the hallmarks of corruption.
Laporte – formerly a highly successful coach who guided France twice to the World Cup semifinals (2003/07) – is further accused of intervening with French rugby’s federal disciplinary commission.
They reduced a fine against an Altrad company to €20,000 – it was originally €70,000 – after a call from Laporte.
While prosecutors see this and several more incidents as proof of illicit favouritism, Laporte himself has claimed there was no “cause-effect relationship”.
On the last day of the trial in October, Laporte’s lawyer Fanny Colin accused the prosecution of “confirmation bias” by “taking into account only elements backing their original assumptions”.
She added: “What we have here are the perfect conditions for judicial error.”
Five officials are in the dock, also including Claude Atcher, who was in August suspended as managing director of the 2023 World Cup organisation, and FFR vice-president Serge Simon.
Atcher’s lawyers issued a statement in September saying he was the target of “persecution by the judiciary and the media”.
The verdict comes only nine months before the World Cup kicks off in France on September 8, 2023, with matches played in nine stadiums across the country.
