Whether they were placed there by little green men or whether they are the fruit of the ingenuity of our dear ancestors, menhirs continue to fascinate young and old throughout time. But all we really know, deep down, is that these immense blocks of granite which populate the Breton regions are difficult to move and completely puncture-proof.
A bit like Noël Le Graët, the other Costa Rican menhir, who was thought to be definitively lost in the dustbin of history after his sexual harassment affair and who, against all expectations, has made a resounding return in recent weeks. After being cleared by the courts of the facts with which he was accused, the father of En Avant Guingamp and former big man of French football chose the newspaper The Team to rise from his ashes and send a few well-placed blows to those who had buried him too quickly.
Le Graët seasons Diallo in the countryside
The most memorable of them was directed against Philippe Diallo, his successor at the head of the FFF and who is putting his own back on the line this Saturday during the federal elections. When our colleague asks him if Philippe Diallo was worthy of the office he inherited, NLG takes out the bazooka. “I have no opinion. He should play the Lotto (smile)! He is fired from the UCPF union, ex-Foot Unis, I have a free place, I tell myself that he knows football and appoints him treasurer. With the departure of Brigitte Henriques from the CNOSF, I promoted him to vice-president. I would have done better to name another woman,” he decides, without knowing whether we should see in this allusion to the fairer sex a second degree note.
What is certain is that Father Diallo is dressed for winter. To understand the resentment he harbors towards his former right-hand man, we must take the following sentence: “I don’t know if Florence Hardouin warned him of what she was going to do against me, I a doubt. » There it is, everything is there.
“He had become a little paranoid”
Convinced since the beginning of this affair of the existence of a plot hatched by the duo Florence Hardouin-Philippe Diallo and carried out against him to precipitate his downfall, Noël Le Graët took advantage of his new judicial virginity to tarnish the president of the the FFF in the home stretch of its campaign. A fine connoisseur of the character, with whom he may have had disagreements at the time of the Le Graët affair, Eric Borghini gives us the depths of his thoughts.
“When Noël Le Graët says that if he had not appointed Diallo president of the referees committee, no one would know him, he is completely right. But in the end he was no longer too lucid, he imagined that everyone was against him, he was a little paranoid. There was never a plot hatched against him by the Diallo-Hardouin duo. Noël just took advantage of the court decision to settle a few scores and pull a few punches, but we shouldn’t see more than that. The second blade against Diallo did not take long to come, even more violent, when he announced that he was supporting his opponent, Pierre Samsonoff. “He’s a good candidate, better than Diallo. I will support him. He will make a good list, he knows amateur football well. He is serious, intelligent and cultured, he is not an eccentric,” he asserts, implying with his big clogs that Philippe Diallo is a eccentric one.
Natural support for Pierre Samsonoff
In a paper from Parisian and under cover of anonymity, two experts see in this support the undeniable sign of a desire for revenge on the part of the Breton. As if to finish the job before definitively retiring, he who had assured his team during the famous post-Zidane Gate Comex that he would “not be the only one” to fall into this dirty affair.
This is more or less what the president of the 3F thinks when he responds to our colleagues, who asked him if this strong return of the Menhir was not of the order of “fantasy or rumor in the corridor”. “No, I don’t think it’s just that,” he assures. I think he’s trying to do everything he can to help this competing list. »And therefore weigh him down. So, at the age of 82, would Noël Le Graët have thrown his last strength into the battle to kill the man to whom he gave the keys to the cattle truck?
“I don’t think we should see something Machiavellian in this,” judge Eric Borghini, member of the Comex and president of the Mediterranean League. This support for Samsonoff is natural. Noël and Pierre have always been very close due to their love for En Avant Guingamp, a club that they both managed, one as CEO, the other as president. At the time it was even said that Pierre was the spiritual son of Christmas. So I find it logical that he supports it. »
“Christmas has turned the page on the Federation”
Originally from Côtes-d’Armor and a big fan of the EAG, Pierre Samsonoff quickly made a place for himself in the Guingamp lordship of Monseigneur Le Graët as administrator of the Rouge et Noir. A position he held from 2010 to 2016, when he moved to the capital to join his sidekick and become Deputy Director General of the French Football Federation. And if he will end up leaving the ship in 2021, frustrated to see the Le Graët-Hardouin duo giving little importance to amateur football which he holds in high esteem, he, the former director of the Football League amateur within the FFF, he will not remain angry with his ex-mentor.
Our file on Noël Le Graët
For Eric Borghini, seeing Noël Le Graët as a string puller and Pierre Samsonoff as a simple puppet is like smoke and mirrors. “Noel is 82 years old, he has been very ill, we must not imagine that he is going to come back and stick his nose everywhere in the Federation. Especially since Pierre Samsonoff has personality, he is not someone who lets things happen. Noël has turned the page on the Federation, he’s not coming back, that’s a joke. Afterwards, that he will have a little satisfaction if Diallo is beaten on Saturday, we cannot exclude it (laughs). » Indeed, without being a complete actor in this life-size play, it is a safe bet that he would not spit on revenge through an intermediary. Seeing his spiritual son put the final blow to Diallo’s career would definitely be a nice early Christmas present.
