The president of the French Olympic Committee (CNOSF) Brigitte Henriques, elected in June 2021, resigned from her post on Thursday, a coup d’état in full general assembly fourteen months before the Paris 2024 Olympics, to end an internal crisis that has lasted for more than a year and a half, CNOSF announced.
Internal conflicts and rivalries overtook the former vice-president of the French Football Federation (FFF), in open war for months with her predecessor Denis Masseglia. The secretary general of the body Astrid Guyart will ensure the interim until the election of a new president “in the next three months”, specifies the press release from CNOSF.
“The situation was no longer tenable, she made the right choice,” responded a federation president who was present at the time of the announcement of this resignation during a much-anticipated general meeting.
For more than a year and a half, CNOSF has been going through an unprecedented crisis between threats of complaints, low blows and revelations of email exchanges in the press…
This climate has become even heavier in recent days with the announcement by Denis Masseglia of an upcoming complaint to the National Financial Prosecutor (PNF) for breach of trust directed at Brigitte Henrique’s tenure.
The September 2022 ouster of Henriques’ former right-hand man, Didier Seminet, triggered a deep crisis from which the institution has never recovered.
The proximity of the Paris Olympics in a fortnight and this endless crisis worried many players in French sport.
“This resignation is a way to solve the crisis and it is quite noble,” responded another federation president.
