Claude Simonet, former president of the French Football Federation, is dead
The “president of the Zidane generation” and of the 1998 World Cup is dead. Claude Simonet died overnight from Monday to Tuesday, at the age of 92, his family confirmed to the French Football Federation (FFF) on Wednesday March 15.
The former amateur goalkeeper played several times at professional level at Le Mans and FC Nantes in the 1940s to 1960s. He was president of the FFF for eleven years, from 1994 to 2005. In 1998, this native of Orne is made a Knight of the Legion of Honor after France’s victory at the World Cup.
In 2007, Claude Simonet was given a six-month suspended prison sentence and a fine of 10,000 euros for his role in the falsification of the accounts of the sports organization. He was accused of forgery and forgery for having concealed a deficit of 13.9 million euros for the period from 2002 to 2003, revealing, thanks to the accounting makeup of which he was suspected, only a deficit of 63,000 euros.
The end of the presidency of the former Nantes goalkeeper had been marked by criticism of a sometimes high federal lifestyle, symbolized by the episode of a bottle of Romanée-Conti paid for 4,800 euros by the FFF at the evening of the defeat of France against Senegal (1-0), during the 2002 World Cup.
More information to come
