Amélie Oudéa-Castéra’s first year in office brought chaos at the Champions League final and scandals in multiple sports. With the Paris Olympics looming, her toughest days may be ahead.
PARIS — It was the middle of September and Amélie Oudéa-Castéra needed to know if there was any truth in the lurid headlines she was reading.
As France’s sports minister, Oudéa-Castéra had the power to summon Noël Le Graët, the octogenarian who has run French soccer for more than a decade, and confront him about the allegations about his behavior: serious accusations of inappropriate comments and text messages to female staff members; whispers about heavy lunchtime drinking sessions; news reports that the federation had ignored sexual harassment and sexual abuse.
“Before those revelations from the press I personally did not know Noël Le Graët,” Oudéa-Castéra said in an interview last week. “I had never met him.”
So Oudéa-Castéra, not yet four months into her post, reached out arranged a meeting. On the appointed day, the two executives sat down at a circular glass table in Oudéa-Castéra’s cavernous sixth-floor office, and she began to ask questions. Unable to reconcile the two conflicting narratives, the news coverage and the denials being offered by Le Graët, Oudéa-Castéra commissioned an independent investigation.
By the time it was underway, the stack of problems on her desk had already grown.
Dark Clouds
These should be heady days for French sports. The country’s men’s soccer team played in its second straight World Cup final in December, and its women’s squad will be among the favorites in its own championship this summer. France will host the Rugby World Cup later this year, and then step onto the biggest stage in sports in 2024, when it will welcome the world to the Summer Olympics in Paris.
All of those events had been expected to bring an outsize focus on French sports and by extension on Oudéa-Castéra, an old friend and college contemporary of President Emmanuel Macron who took the job of sports minister last May. Few could have predicted how hot that spotlight would become.
A former junior tennis champion and professional player, Oudéa-Castéra had arrived at the sports ministry from a short stint leading the French tennis federation. She came armed with folders filled with big ideas and grand plans, excited to use her office to promote youth affairs, health and job creation.
Instead, she has been fighting fires almost nonstop.
One of her major headaches may be addressed this week: A decision on the status of Le Graët is expected during a meeting of the soccer federation’s board on Tuesday.