Totally lunar evening at the CNOSF headquarters on Tuesday. The former president of the French Olympic Committee (CNOSF), Denis Masseglia, in conflict with the current president Brigitte Henriques, and invited by the latter to participate on Tuesday in a board of directors of the body, indicated that he wanted to file a complaint for breach of trust with the PNF, thus refusing the offer of reconciliation.
Brigitte Henriques’ gesture of inviting her predecessor, with whom relations have been extremely strained for months, is very far from having had the desired effect. The meeting on Tuesday at the start of the evening even, on the contrary, according to a source close to the body, was “quite eventful”. Invited in a gesture of appeasement to come and speak in front of the members of the Board, the ex-president has in fact dropped his blows.
“I was invited and told that my speech was free, so I explained why I was angry,” Denis Masseglia told AFP. In latent conflict with the president, in particular since the ousting in September 2022 of the former secretary general of the CNOSF Didier Séminet, Denis Masseglia did not digest the last media release of Brigitte Henriques, elected in June 2021.
A complaint against X should follow
The latter had summoned the press on April 4 after a letter from Denis Masseglia sent to the treasurer to the general secretary of the CNOSF, evoking cases in which Brigitte Henriques could be involved according to him. One of them, the support of Henriques as vice-president of the FFF to the former president of the Center-Val-de-Loire football league accused and sentenced to a one-year suspended prison sentence for harassment moral and sexual, would be at the center of the wrath of Denis Masseglia.
During this press conference in the house of French sport, Brigitte Henriques’ lawyer said he reserved the right to file a complaint against the ex-president. “And that is totally unacceptable,” protested Denis Masseglia to AFP. “That this lawyer is threatening to file a complaint against me, with the Olympic rings as a backdrop, is not possible”.
In front of the members of the body, the ex-president read a letter that AFP was able to consult, detailing all the grievances he blames on his former protege. He notably affirmed that according to him, she was “no longer up to the challenge”.
Henriques denounces a “cabal”
After having detailed several financial irregularities according to him, which enamelled the presidency of Brigitte Henriques, he then stated his desire to file a complaint against X for breach of trust with the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF) “in the coming days”. “This complaint corresponds to an imperative need for us, that of knowing, simply knowing the truth”, is it written in the mail.
This intervention was not to the taste of Brigitte Henriques. “The cabal continues! It borders on harassment. It is unacceptable, ”she reacted to AFP. “My predecessor was my first support, he has known me for years, and because I did not want to follow him blindly, he became not only my greatest enemy but the main ambassador of his own hatred towards me. It’s sad ! “, she added.
