FFF Director Suspended Pending Investigation

May 1st, 2011 | by: jeff | Comments Off

French Football Federation (FFF) technical director François Blaquart has been suspended by the French Government pending an investigation following his statement that the FFF is concerned about investing in training players who make themselves unavailable for selection for the French national team by choosing to play for another country.

Apparently there is no mechanism in place to protect the FFF’s investment in players who have, for example, a foreign parent that allows them to play for another country (dual nationals). Lacking a mechanism to retain them, the FFF apparently had internal discussions about potentially limiting the percentage of dual nationals admitted to France’s training academies.

Discrimination is a standard practice of football academies: kids with no football skills, who also show no signs of potentially developing any football skills, are routinely denied admittance. This practice is in place with France’s football academies to promote the possibility that France may one day have a successful football team.

The apparent discussions held within the FFF to potentially further discriminate based on dual national status has led to an investigation. Because limitations on dual nationals would likely affect more non-white kids than white kids, there is a perception among some that the discrimination would be based on race. While I allow for the possibility that there may be racists within the FFF, discussing a potential limitation of dual nationals in football academies is not proof of racism. Furthermore, the multi-racial composition of the France team suggests that the racist elements that may exist within the FFF have no influence. Being disappointed that a player makes himself unavailable for selection, if that player is a racial minority, is further evidence of an absence of racism.

Practicing racism, however, is far from the only sort of wrongdoing that a person may undertake, and discussing a proposal to potentially limit admittance of dual nationals to football academies (or agreeing to such a proposal, or not disclosing having agreed to such a proposal) could be a violation of FFF or French policy, in which case François Blaquart’s suspension could be upgraded to a dismissal, and he would likely be joined by others.