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Top 14: power struggle, success… Altrad-Lorenzetti, the war of the leaders

2021-01-29T07:37:49.724Z


The presidents of Montpellier and Racing 92, who face each other this Friday evening, are two billionaires who started from nothing, opposed on their v


They wanted to be kings.

Reign over territory they did not know.

But you can't take an oval ball so easily, even with all the gold in the world.

Mohed Altrad and Jacky Lorenzetti have all the same changed the face of rugby in France.

The two billionaires, presidents of Montpellier and Racing, face each other this Friday in a duel that still smells of powder between two clubs which would have plunged, without them, into anonymity.

The two men, so different, however, have the same fierce desire to rule their destiny.

Two chefs engaged in a merciless fight to conquer a sport they discovered at almost sixty years old.

Two billionaires built on the same model

Mohed Altrad has darker eyes, cooler touch and a softer voice than Jacky Lorenzetti.

His life is a novel, that of an orphan born in a Syrian desert, arrived alone in Montpellier to pass the bac with 200 francs in his pocket.

An engineer who became a business manager, founder of his Altrad group in 1985, world leader in the supply of industrial equipment in the construction industry.

He is between 70 and 73 years old, he does not know it himself.

Lorenzetti, he celebrated his 73 years.

And, like Altrad, he built an empire from below.

He has always lived in the south of Hauts-de-Seine in Fontenay-aux-Roses then in Sceaux.

He studied at the hotel school in Lausanne (Switzerland) and he founded Foncia, his real estate company, in 1972, which was sold in 2007.

Arrived in rugby in 2006, he then diversified by buying in particular vineyards and castles in the Médoc, north of Bordeaux.

“As long as I can move forward, I will,” he said.

We are on earth to do what we have to do.

I have no merit because, what I do, I can do.

This is my philosophy.

Altrad, he got into politics.

He targeted the town hall of Montpellier and failed in the second round of municipal elections last June.

"I wanted to give back to my city what it had given me," he slips.

I want to touch the hearts of men.

This is how we move forward together.

"

A power struggle at the heart of rugby

The two presidents may see their club as a business, but they do not see rugby in the same way.

They speak little to each other, avoid each other, do not attend the same meetings.

They chose two opposing camps.

The Federation (FFR) for Mohed Altrad, who became a sponsor of the XV de France.

The League for Jacky Lorenzetti.

And they pull a lot of strings in both cases.

“The National League only represents the professional world, a few hundred people in all.

It should be a subsidiary of the FFR ”, ton the Montpellier.

“The clubs make a lot of efforts,” replies Lorenzetti, who dreams of a World Cup… clubs.

Tensions rose a notch on April 24, 2017 during a Montpellier-Racing at the Altrad Stadium where anti-League and anti-Racing banners had been deployed.

The starting point of the Laporte case.

The president of the FFR, then bound by an image contract with Altrad, is suspected of having tried to reduce the sanctions of the Hérault club.

Sawtooth successes

“I lacked humility.

When I arrived I thought rugby was easier than that and that we would win titles faster.

Jacky Lorenzetti has hoisted his club to the top of the bill only once in fourteen years: a Brennus shield won in 2016 in Barcelona.

Its three lost European finals (2016, 2018, 2020) weigh heavily even if Racing has settled among the top 14 and European Cup leaders.

The president of the Ile-de-France region has also succeeded in quite a few blows with the passages of Sébastien Chabal or Dan Carter at Ciel et Blanc.

Mohed Altrad has not experienced the same results since his arrival in 2011. With a European Challenge (the small European Cup) for only title and two Top 14 finals, in 2011 and 2018, his record is poor. .

“The functioning of a club is not rational, underlines Mohed Altrad.

It suffices for an essential player to miss his match, in the final phase, for the season to be missed.

This does not happen in a company where you have time to see problems coming.

"

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The very complicated start to the season for his club, penultimate in the Top 14, marked by the ousting of his manager Xavier Garbajosa, does not prove him wrong.

“Jacky is much more present in the life of the club, he rants but it doesn't last.

Mohed is more distant.

We see it less.

He can be a little scary at times, but he quickly understands.

»It is a relative who speaks.

Source: leparis

All sports articles on 2021-01-29

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