It is the traffic jam on the front of the French sports federations which, at the end of 2024, will pass one by one (or almost) through the sieve of the elections. After the fencing federation, which saw the victory of the opposition list against former president Bruno Gares, accused of mismanagement and suspected of embezzlement, as we revealed during a previous investigation, it’s judo‘s turn to get involved.
One year after the submission of the report the commission of inquiry on the failures of sports federations, it is nothing to say that the third federation in the country with its 530,000 licensees has not been spared from criticism over its catastrophic management of cases of sexual and gender-based violence.
The parliamentarians had thus highlighted “a form of systemic silence within the federation” and “a tendency at all levels […]and until 2020, not wanting to deal with cases of sexual violence.” But unlike what we have seen in other federations, the FFJDA seems not to have waited for the conclusions of this investigation of unprecedented scale to clean up the house.
Awareness followed by effects
It is true that the grievances against this federation dated back to the former team in place, that of Jean-Luc Rougé, president of the FFJDA from 2005 to 2020, who did not fail to surprise during his hearing the deputies arriving with guns blazing and their hands in their pockets, seeming then to discover the extent of the problem.
Conversely, his successor, the current president Stéphane Nomis, was one of the rare federation presidents to be so sensitive to the work of the commission. “Everyone could see that this sequence really touched me,” he confirms to us today. On the day of his hearing, he did not fail to “thank” the commission whose work would make it possible to “identify the problems and contribute to initiating the necessary regulations. »
He had, and this is a rare enough fact to underline it, wanted to “ask for forgiveness, in the name of the Federation, from all the people who were victims of violence in our clubs and in our structures”. “The harm that was done to them, while we should have protected them, will remain a shadow that no medal can dissipate,” he concluded.
Pinned in a report by the General Inspectorate of Education, Sport and Research (IGESR) commissioned in 2020 by the former Minister of Sports Roxana Maracineanu, the FFJDA decided to get the dust out from under the carpet in order to treat each case of sexual and gender-based violence with the greatest firmness, in particular by requiring each club, each manager or technical manager to follow training on the subject.
An initiative welcomed by Frank Opitz, the president of the Occitanie Judo League who is running this year against Stéphane Nomis. “We have long preferred to settle (or not settle) this type of matter as a family so as not to tarnish our disciplines in the eyes of the general public. Except that when we stay in this space, nothing moves, he notes. The current governance has also decided to set up a platform to listen to victims and we can only welcome this initiative. We must continue this work because it is no longer possible to tolerate the presence of predators, but also old methods of harsh training which no longer have any reason to exist today. »
Anti-SGBV training that makes people cringe
The fact remains that the training in question raises some eyebrows since it is both compulsory and paid. What this committee president cannot digest, who, due to elections, prefers to remain anonymous: “Making people pay for that, I find it scandalous,” he laments. For me, it is shameful to want to make money on a subject of such seriousness, it should be free for all and certainly not a source of income for the federation. »
“This subject is too important for us to make money off it, I even find it quite unhealthy in the end. As this training module is funded by the ANS, we will make this training free for everyone,” promises Frank Opitz. “We cannot offer more and more services to our members and do so without worrying about the financial health of our Federation,” retorts the team in place.
Money and the way in which it is used is perhaps the sticking point between the two candidates for the presidency of the FFJDA. On the side of Frank Opitz, we denounce in particular a “very entrepreneurial vision of the management of the federation and its finances”.
« “The club is neither a client nor a commercial franchise and, if we are elected, we are not looking, as the camp opposite does, for profitability at all costs. Money is a means and not an end. We must remain on an associative model, certainly modernized, and not a commercial model. I don’t want to be the richest federation in France, I want our clubs to have the means to operate on a daily basis. » »
Stéphane Nomis responds by presenting his assessment: “We have come a long way, fulfilled almost all of the objectives announced, straightened out the accounts of the Federation, increased the budget, found all our licensees after COVID, developed the 1,000 plan dojos, fought against violence. We still have projects in progress, and enough to move judo forward. We know what we did well and what we did not do well. »
More democracy after the elections?
Finally, in its report, the parliamentary commission of inquiry pointed out a governance problem which, as it turns out, is specific to all federations. This is precisely what the opposition list “United for Judo!” » wants to revolutionize.
“We must mature our democratic model, our federation must be much more fair and transparent, this is the reason why we want to put in place a dose of opposition in the board of directors,” assures Opitz. I believe that we should not be afraid of debate, we must put the system back on track, this allows us to avoid abuses or potential conflicts of interest. »
As such, he proposes to give the presidency of the finance committee to the losing team, as is the case in politics. This is part of 62 recommendations issued by the parliamentary commission which noted that, until now, “the safeguards against financial abuses and attacks on probity appear notoriously insufficient”. Without giving us more details, the president of the FFJDA also assures us that this subject “will be part of the developments that we will propose during the coming mandate. »
Contacted by 20 Minutesthe commission’s rapporteur and EELV deputy Sabrina Sebaihi regretted that her work had been so poorly received within the federations. It has perhaps found in the FFJDA a strong ally on which the other disciplines could rely to bring about the democratic shock necessary for the smooth running of sport in our country.
