MADRID, 9 Mar. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The French Football Federation (FFF) announced this Thursday that it has decided to terminate Corinne Diacre’s duties as women’s national team coach after noting “a very important fracture” with the players and that “it harms the interests” of ‘Les Bleues’.
The Executive Committee of the organization commissioned an audit to a panel of four people to clarify everything that was happening in the national team after its captain, Wendie Renard, announced that she was giving up playing due to the current conditions and in order to preserve her ” mental health”, in a message addressed to the coach.
The Olympique de Lyon player quickly found the support and solidarity of two other important footballers such as Marie-Antoinette Katoto and Kadidiatou Diani, and although the FFF was critical of “the forms” and recalled that the team is above, they decided to open an investigation that she was going to mark the future of the coach, that she had made it clear that she was not going to resign and that she was the victim of “a smear campaign.”
The federation indicated in a statement on its website that Laura Georges, Aline Riera, Jean-Michel Aulas and Marc Keller issued “their conclusions” and proposed “their recommendations” on Thursday, and stressed that “the numerous hearings held” had made it possible to establish ” the observation of a very important gap with the players that reveal a discrepancy with the demands of the very high level”.
“This fracture has reached a point of no return that harms the interests of the selection. If the FFF recognizes the involvement and seriousness of Corinne Diacre and her staff in the exercise of their mission, it seems that the dysfunctions observed result, in this context, irreversible. Given these elements, it was decided to put an end to Corinne Diacre’s mission at the helm of the French women’s team,” he added.
The FFF stressed that this change “is part of a new global ambition” that it is leading “in favor of the development of women’s football and the performance of the French team, which must achieve high goals during the 2023 World Cup and the Paris Olympic Games of 2024”.
In addition, Philippe Diallo, interim president after the departure of Noël Le Graët, has asked this commission to begin, “as soon as possible”, to interview possible candidates for the position of selector and “formulate its recommendations”.
Finally, the federative Executive Committee also reiterated that “the way used by the players to express their criticism was no longer acceptable in the future” and assured that their intention is to propose that there be a link with the new coach or coach to prevent it from being repeat something similar
In this way, the stage of Corinne Diacre, who took office in 2017, ends, leaving Clermont Foot of Ligue 2, where she had become the first woman to lead a professional club in France. International 121 times, the French coach took ‘Les Bleues’ to the quarterfinals of the 2019 World Cup at home and to the semifinals of the last Eurocup.
The coach had regretted this Wednesday the “shameful media outburst in recent days” and had reaffirmed her desire to “honor France in the next World Cup.” “For more than 10 days I have been the object of a smear campaign that is astonishing for its violence and dishonesty. My detractors do not hesitate – without bothering to tell the truth – to attack my personal and professional integrity, 4 months after the World Cup. No I will allow myself to be caught up in this destabilization operation, which does not take my history into account and whose sole objective is to settle personal accounts,” he said.