Noël Le Graët left his position as president of the French Football Federation by resigning on Tuesday, February 28. The former Breton businessman will have managed the most important sports federation in France, for a good decade, with the victory of the Blues at the 2018 World Cup which will remain as the peak of his reign.
It was on Christmas Day that Le Graët was born in 1941 in Bourbriac in Brittany, in the Côtes-d’Armor. There, the “provincial”, as he likes to define himself, began his ascent to become the strongman of the most powerful French sports federation.
Born into a working-class family, a teacher in his youth, Noël Le Graët was PS mayor of Guingamp from 1995 to 2008. Le Breton chaired the En avant Guingamp club between 1972 and 1991 and from 2002 to 2011, taking him from regional level to Ligue 1. En avant Guingamp revealed Didier Drogba or Florent Malouda, and won the Coupe de France in 2009. He also chaired the Professional Football League (LFP) between 1991 and 2000. Then, at From 2005, he was vice-president of the FFF.
The “Menhir”, his nickname, has also made a fortune in the food industry near Guingamp, again. He created his company – now managed by his daughter – in the sector in 1984, a company specializing among other things in frozen products and seafood, which today employs nearly 700 people.
source: rfi
