A new chapter opens for the Professional Football League. After the years Frédéric Thiriez (2002-2016) and Nathalie Boy de la Tour (2016-2020), who announced his retirement on Tuesday in L'Equipe, a new president or a new president must be elected in the fall. A doubt still persists on the calendar, some players in the round balloon wishing to advance the ballot to the month of September.
If there is no truly declared candidate, a man is already collecting a majority of votes: Michel Denisot, the former president of PSG. The journalist has multiplied the hats in his life: television host, editorial director of the magazine Vanity Fair, football manager of course (also at the Berrichonne de Châteauroux) and even director of the film, "Any resemblance", with Franck Dubosc , released in November 2019.
Five years ago, in December 2015, Noël Le Graët, the president of the Federation (FFF), brought the famous presenter back to the world of bodies, making him the representative of the FFF on the board of directors of the league. He has been there ever since and maintains a relationship of trust with the Breton boss. The two men walk hand in hand. Le Graët, who likes to keep control of the situation, would thus welcome his election at the head of the League. In November 2016, Denisot was also asked to take the reins of the body before giving up, little excited at the time by the perimeter of the post.
Media, skilled and able to federate
But since then, the situation has changed and President of the League has once again become a position that matters and weighs even if the progress of operations has fallen to the executive director general of the LFP, in this case Didier Quillot for four years. Once again, Michel Denisot is not insensitive to the function. In addition to the support of Le Graët, he benefits from the support of the Ligue 2 union, the UCPF, led by Claude Michy, shareholder of Clermont Foot. Within the UCPF, the influence of Bertrand Desplats, president of Guingamp, is major.
Desplats also supports the candidacy of Michel Denisot, who has remained close to Nathalie Boy de la Tour in recent months in the governance crisis crossed by the professional world at all levels of its many decision-making places, between the proliferation of unions and colleges, not to mention the attempts at dissent from each other, with in the matter the role of scout played by Gérard Lopez, the boss of Lille.
For his supporters, Denisot would embody a form of continuity with Nathalie Boy de la Tour, a way of saluting the courageous mandate of this woman of power, isolated in the midst of the 24 other members of the board of directors, all of them men. Media, skillful, able to unite, the former president of PSG brings together many assets to win at the head of professional football.
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Other names are circulating to succeed Boy de la Tour, such as that of Gervais Martel, former president of Lens and the UCPF, who has yet to be elected to the board of directors. He thinks about it. Vincent Labrune, former boss of OM, who has a relationship of trust with a large part of the leaders of L 1 and L 2 clubs also returns with insistence.