Germain Roesch, president of the powerful Ile-de-France league, announced to AFP on Wednesday his candidacy for the election of president of the French Tennis Federation (FFT), against the outgoing Gilles Moretton whom he had supported but who disappointed him.
While he acknowledges being close to Mr. Moretton on a number of fundamental issues, and in particular the fundamental place of clubs, Germain Roesch, who has taken the head of the association “The clubs! At the heart of our commitment”denounces the current president’s way of leading. “Spirit-wise, there were some excellent things. On the other hand, its implementation, no. And I hope that the Executive Committee becomes an entity of exchange, of debate, therefore in fact a participatory, cooperative, serene governance as well, because we are very far from having a serene climate within this Comex”explained by M. Roesch. “From the moment you are not in the president’s camp, unfortunately, your remarks, your proposals, your recommendations are disregarded. And that is initially the reason why I distanced myself.”he added. “The trigger was the episode of the move of the Rolex Paris Master from Bercy to the Défense Arena, so it dates back to November 2023. The Paris Masters was born in Bercy 37 years ago, and to make this type of decision It was important that all members of the Executive Committee could give their opinion, rather than listening and looking at comparative tables presented by the president and his general director. Was the move inevitable? Is the Defense Arena the only solution to allow us to maintain the ATP 1000 ranking? I don’t know, because we couldn’t compare the projects point by point. I asked that the three projects be auditioned, which we absolutely did not have.
Aged 65, married and father of two children, Germain Roesch had a career as a manager of international companies. Believing that the president of the FFT must no longer hold «manager» that of the former champion, Germain Roesch articulates his program on three major “pillars”: “development, practices and clubs, training, teachers and managers, sports”. Regarding development, Roesch intends to launch a «audit» of all clubs to determine the “deficiencies” which should be remedied. For the athlete, he intends to review “from top to bottom the way the National Technical Directorate (DTN) works”. Here too, he believes that the DTN must manage technicians and therefore be led by a «manager». For training, he particularly wishes to study the creation of a federal diploma to better meet the evolving needs of clubs. “The state of mind that drives me is to consider that this Executive Committee can be above all a democratic, cooperative body. I have had a lot of success, I am proud of it, at the head of the companies I have managed. It’s because I managed to surround myself with people who had combined expertise and experience, and who often contributed by putting themselves in contradiction of the objectives that I defined. And I haven’t felt that for a while within the FFT Executive Committee. We are very far from having a serene climate. These elected officials are either respected or mistreated. From the moment you are not in the president’s camp, your remarks, your proposals, your recommendations are discredited.
The election of the president of the FFT will begin in September: the club presidents will count for half of the votes and the leaders of Leagues and Committees for the second. The vote will end during the elective general assembly on December 14, 2024.
2024-06-19 12:55:02
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