THE NEW YORK TIMES SPORTSTHURSDAY, OCTOBER 15, 2020 Y B9
PRO BASKETBALL
From the outside, France’s soc-
cer federation has for two years
represented its sport’s gold stand-
ard: champions at the men’s
World Cup in Russia in 2018 and
host of the most successful wom-
en’s championship in history a
year later.
But inside the federation, cur-
rent and former officials said, that
golden aura has masked at least
two years of roiling discontent, in-
cluding accusations of improper
behavior by executives toward fe-
male staff members, charges of
bullying by the organization’s di-
rector general and complaints
about a toxic culture in which
some men routinely direct sexist
language and suggestive remarks
toward female staff members.
Things have gotten so bad in-
side the federation’s Paris head-
quarters that the longtime presi-
dent, Noël Le Graët, has brought
in an outside expert trained in re-
pairing broken businesses to
guide his staff out of the tumult.
“For several months now I’ve
been made aware of instances of
dysfunction and tense work rela-
tionships within the leadership
team,” Le Graët wrote last month
in an email to senior staff mem-
bers that was reviewed by The
New York Times. “I do not want
this situation to drag on. It is tak-
ing a toll on our organization and
on proper working conditions
among us all.”
The discord is a serious threat
to the organization’s mission, sev-
eral federation officials said, not
only because of the workplace is-
sues, but also because the loss of
top leaders could, over time, affect
the performance of France’s
world-beating teams. France’s
women’s team is dealing with its
own internal revolt, with several
top players feuding with the
team’s coach and one announcing
she will not play for the squad un-
til the coach is gone.
In interviews far from the field,
more than a half-dozen current
and former employees of the soc-
cer federation described to The
Times a work environment in
which bad language, mental
abuse and stress were common,
and where alcohol had fueled im-
proper behavior at staff events, in-
cluding at least one incident in
which male staff members en-
tered a female colleague’s room
without her permission.
The crisis inside the federation
belies the success of France’s
teams, from the men’s World Cup
winners of 2018 to the country’s
widely respected youth develop-
ment programs to a women’s na-
tional team that ranks third in the
world behind only the United
States and Germany.
One director described the situ-
ation as a “sad paradox” in which
so many positives disguised “two
years of sickness.”
“It is a pathetic comedy,” he
said.
The soccer body, the Fédération
Française de Football (F.F.F.), em-
ploys about 300 staff members op-
erating across two main sites: the
organization’s headquarters in
Paris and a national training cen-
ter in Clairefontaine-en-Yvelines,
about 35 miles southwest of the
city. With an annual budget of
around $300 million, it oversees
all amateur and professional soc-
cer in France, a constituency of
more than 2.1 million licensed am-
ateur players and about 1,500 pro-
fessionals. The federation also
runs one of the world’s best talent
production systems across 25
sites nationwide, including eight
specifically for women.
For Le Graët, insiders said,
much of the focus has been on re-
pairing the deteriorating relation-
ships among members of his man-
agement team. In September,
more than a year after fielding
complaints about the leadership
style of the organization’s director
general, Florence Hardouin, he
sent an email to the federation’s
directors telling them he had
called in a workplace expert, EricMoliere, whose company, Plein
Sens, specializes in repairing
damaged organizations.
Le Graët, who sits on the gov-
erning council of FIFA, world soc-
cer’s governing body, has prom-
ised to act on the findings of the re-
port being compiled by Moliere.
But for more than a year since re-
ceiving a letter signed by more
than a dozen senior executives
who stated that they had lost con-
fidence in management, Le Graët
has taken few substantive actions
to address the problems, the cur-
rent and former officials said.
At a meeting in 2019, according
to staff members who were
present, Le Graët simply im-
plored staff members to work bet-
ter together. Hardouin, according
to people involved, heard the com-
plaints and made her own criti-
cisms, but also vowed to make an
effort to improve the situation.
She had a tough job on her
hands.
“The working environment has
deteriorated so much because of a
management method which
harms the functioning of the fed-
eration and the good accomplish-
ment of its basic missions,” read a
portion of the letter sent to Le
Graët last year.
This summer, the environment
deteriorated further, employees
said, with more missives being ad-
dressed to Le Graët. In one that
was reviewed by The Times, an
executive said that his mental
health had deteriorated to such an
extent that he could no longer
carry out his job. Other officials
have made similar claims of psy-
chological harassment from col-leagues.
Despite the problems, Le Graët
insisted that things were not as
bad as some officials said.
“There is no ‘civil war’ in F.F.F.,”
he said in emailed responses to
questions relayed through the fed-
eration’s spokesman. “This is
wrong, absurd and fake news.”
Hardouin, like other staff mem-
bers, had his full support, he said.
For Hardouin, one of a small
group of women in senior roles in
global soccer, the skirmishes have
been personal. In emailed re-
sponses to questions, she said she
was aware of the complaints that
have found their way to the office
of Le Graët, who promoted her
from her position as the head of
the marketing division to lead the
federation in 2012.
But Hardouin said she did not
feel personally targeted by the ac-
cusations, and suggested it was
healthy for the organization to
work with the outside expert to
address any problems.
“All this allows us to improve,
move forward and be better,” she
said.
Moliere, the workplace consult-
ant, has spent hours talking to the
senior management team and
asking probing questions, accord-
ing to some of those who have
been interviewed.
According to officials at the fed-
eration, part of the problem lies in
a bloated management structure
in which 17 directors are con-
stantly vying for prominent roles.
(Those internal politics also may
be heating up: Le Graët, 78, is up
for re-election in March.) But the
issues, several of those inter-
viewed said, also were a reflection
of a culture that in some instances
has taken a blind eye to behavior
that some employees have said
makes them uncomfortable.
After the World Cup in 2018, for
example, the federation warned
its finance director, Marc Varin,
about his conduct after a female
employee filed a complaint accus-
ing him of behaving improperly
toward her at a party in Moscow.
A police investigation and then
an internal investigation by the
F.F.F. cleared Varin of sexual har-
assment, but he was later warned
about the language he used to-
ward both male and female col-
leagues — as well as about his al-
cohol consumption — at a Christ-
mas party that year, the federa-
tion said.
Another episode that frustratedsome female staff members oc-
curred a few years earlier, when,
after an evening of drinking at a
management retreat at Claire-
fontaine, at least two senior exec-
utives brandishing a Champagne
bottle entered a female col-
league’s room late at night with-
out an invitation. The federation
said it had not received a com-
plaint about the incident, which
was described by three people
with direct knowledge of the
evening.
Female staff members told The
Times about the casual use of sex-
ually suggestive language by men
who work for the federation, as
well as being subjected to sexist
comments about their appear-
ance.
The federation denied there
were any such problems, and
noted that 45 percent of its em-
ployees were women.
Still, growing concerns about
the conduct of federation person-
nel led to changes after the inci-
dent at the World Cup in Russia.
Staff members are now barred
from consuming alcohol at parties
hosted on federation properties,
and a program of mandatory anti-
harassment training was intro-
duced for federation employees at
the start of 2020.
Communication at the federa-tion’s senior levels has disinte-
grated. The F.F.F., like other sports
organizations, faces damaging fi-
nancial consequences as a result
of the pandemic, but its directors
have not held a board meeting in
four months. Factions have
formed that either support or op-
pose Hardouin, the director gen-
eral, and some officials have hired
lawyers to represent their inter-
ests ahead of possible exit negoti-
ations.
Le Graët has tried to assure em-
ployees that the problems can be
overcome. But one official de-
scribed a “zombielike” atmos-
phere inside the organization.
For now, all of the employees
are awaiting the result of Mo-
liere’s report, which they hope will
lead to fundamental changes.
“We are the result of several
years’ work, and the mess today
you’ll see on the pitch in four or
five years’ time,” said the official,
a senior federation executive who
asked not to be identified given
the politics at play in the manage-
ment fight.
“I think nobody should be
saved, not the factions, not Flor-
ence, and not the president,” the
official added. “I truly think no
one cares about football, they just
care about themselves. We need a
fresh start.”Complaints of Bullying and Sexism Roil French Federation
By TARIQ PANJA
and ROMAIN MOLINANoël Le Graët, right, the French soccer federation president,
hired an outside expert trained in repairing broken businesses.MIGUEL MEDINA/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY IMAGESheated showdown against the
Pacers’ T.J. Warren into a non-
event. My best read is that most
people outside (and even inside)
N.B.A. circles refuse to believe
Butler when he says that, but he
had me convinced after an after-
noon visit in late August.
The esteem Butler holds
among his peers — which was
high long before the bubble — is
such that he needn’t worry much
about how pundits rate him. I
saw it firsthand over the course
of an hourlong sit-down with
Butler in my favorite bubble
hallway adjacent to three of the
seven practice courts that
sprouted on the N.B.A. campus.
The hallway with the garish
orange carpet at the Coronado
Springs convention center was
the only place in the bubble
where reporters could expect to
have unsupervised chance inter-
actions with players, coaches
and other team personnel. It was
also a main thoroughfare to the
meal rooms for the league’s top
teams, who were all staying atPeople laughed at the story
about Jimmy Butler getting a
visit from hotel security because
he was dribbling a basketball too
loudly in his room. They laughed
at the idea of But-
ler peddling $20
cups of his branded
coffee to his Miami
Heat teammates.
They laughed at
how unruly his
mustache got as he steadfastly
refused to see a barber.
So much about Butler’s stay
inside the N.B.A. bubble at Walt
Disney World in Florida was a
source of humor. For the first
time in Butler’s career, people
were readily laughing along with
him, because he was more effec-
tive and consistent than ever
with the serious stuff.
With the longest season in
league history finally complete, it
is no joke to assert that no player
in the bubble enhanced his repu-
tation as much as Butler did.
Miami lost the N.B.A. finals to
LeBron James and the Los Ange-
les Lakers in six games, but
Butler — playing for much of the
series without the injured Bam
Adebayo and Goran Dragic
alongside him — won the bubble
as much as any individual could.
When the season began, more
than 12 months ago, Butler was
widely regarded as a perennial
All-Star whose headstrong, con-
frontational ways made him a
complicated fit in most N.B.A.
locker rooms. A year later, after
he led the Heat to the N.B.A.
finals as a No. 5 seed and outdu-
eled James twice in the champi-
onship series, Butler has the look
(and commands the respect) of
one of the league’s top 10 players.
Will it last? Will the success
and adulation change him? Or
did we actually have it wrong
about him all along? These are
the sorts of questions Butler, 31,
inspires now after a post-30,
Steve Nash-ian breakthrough to
elite status in his ninth season.
“Believe me when I tell you
that I do not care what people
say about me,” Butler said. “I
truly don’t care.”
That was his message to me
after Miami’s first-round sweep
of the Indiana Pacers, when
Butler’s forceful play turned
what was supposed to be a
Disney’s Gran Destino tower.
While I talked with Butler,
Milwaukee’s Wes Matthews
stopped by to reminisce with him
about their days at Marquette.
Pat Connaughton, Matthews’
Bucks teammate, tried in vain to
arrange a discount from Butler’s
Big Face Coffee venture, even
though Milwaukee and Miami
would soon begin a second-round
playoff series. Boston Celtics
Coach Brad Stevens made sure
that Butler heard him say hello.
After a number of Lakers
players enthusiastically greeted
Butler, Rajon Rondo lingered to
rehash how dangerous they were
together in Chicago in the 2017
playoffs. The No. 8 Bulls took a
surprising 2-0 series lead over
the top-seeded Celtics that year
by winning the first two games in
Boston — and let’s just say they
both strongly believe that the
Celtics would have never rallied
if Rondo hadn’t fractured his
right thumb in Game 2.
Lakers Coach Frank Vogel also
soon appeared to share howmuch he enjoyed Butler’s Mi-
chelob Ultra commercial, which
features Butler singing the Hall
& Oates song “You Make My
Dreams Come True.” Then, like
Connaughton, Vogel tried to cut
his own coffee deal.
Milwaukee’s Robin Lopez,
another former Bulls teammate
of Butler’s, was the last in a
procession of well-wishers. As he
walked away toward the Gran
Destino, Lopez turned back,
pointed to Butler and said: “This
man is a treasure.”
More N.B.A. players than not
feel that way about Butler.
You see it in the way Philadel-
phia’s Joel Embiid pines for
Butler through cryptic social
media posts, after the 76ers
prioritized signing Al Horford in
2019 free agency and helped
Butler get to Miami in a sign-
and-trade deal when the Heat
had no salary-cap space. You
saw it again Monday when Pau
Gasol posted a warm tribute to
Butler on social media. Gasol
most closely associates himselfwith the Lakers after winning
two championships alongside
Kobe Bryant, but he also played
with Butler in Chicago.
“I wanted to take a moment
and acknowledge how proud I
am of @JimmyButler,” Gasol
wrote on Twitter. “You’re one of
the best players in the world, and
a great leader!”
Combine all that with the
unmitigated manner in which
Miami has embraced Butler,
abrasive as he can sometimes be,
and I’m not sure he needs the
public’s validation.
“I’m so comfortable with being
myself — more than I’ve ever
been,” Butler said before the
finals. “Not saying I’ve ever not
wanted to be myself, but now I
know ‘myself’ is the right way.”
“He’s such a likable guy,” Heat
Coach Erik Spoelstra said. “He
won’t want anybody to know
that, I guess. He’s totally cool
with the young guys growing —
he’s not territorial about it at all.
He’s just about winning. He
understands that he needs guyswith him.”
Kentucky Coach John Calipari
shared similar sentiments with
me last month. Of Butler’s repu-
tation for dishing out too-tough
love to teammates and his im-
pact on two former Kentucky
stars, Adebayo and Tyler Herro,
Calipari said: “I think Jimmy
Butler has convinced both of my
guys to believe more.”
Nothing, of course, speaks
louder than the two-way bril-
liance Butler delivered against
the Lakers and James after
leading the Heat to the title
round. Butler has also been
criticized because he doesn’t
always play with the offensive
aggression of a top-10 player,
often preferring a more meas-
ured team game, but he found a
new gear when Miami needed it
most and became the first player
in league history to record two
triple-doubles in his first trip to
the finals. Butler averaged a
heady 29.0 points, 10.2 assists,
8.6 rebounds and 2.6 steals
through the first five games
before he wearily produced 12
points, 8 assists and 7 rebounds
in the Game 6 finale.
That Butler faded at the finish
was understandable. He guarded
James for nearly 43 minutes for
the series; next in line were
Adebayo and Andre Iguodala at
eight-plus minutes each.
Twice on the league’s brightest
stage, with James and Anthony
Davis nearby, Butler was the
best player on the floor. He also
captained the team that, along
with the Lakers, bonded the best
in the bubble’s demanding condi-
tions. It would appear that Kawhi
Leonard was on to something (I
previously reported that he tried
to persuade Butler to join him
with the Los Angeles Clippers
before the Clippers’ pursuit of
Paul George.)
Further clues about Butler’s
stature were available — some of
us just didn’t look in the right
places. In September 2018, not
long before he forced his way out
of Minnesota via trade and
stoked all the chatter about how
problematic he was, Butler re-
ceived the key to the city in Tyler,
Texas. The Pro Football Hall of
Famer Earl Campbell played
high school football in Tyler;
Butler developed into a top bas-
ketball prospect after one season
at Tyler Junior College under
Coach Mike Marquis.
“Even Earl Campbell doesn’t
have a key to the city,” Marquis
said.In the Bubble, Butler Ascended Even Higher
MARC
STEIN
ON PRO
BASKETBALLGo behind the N.B.A.’s curtain
with the league’s foremost expert.
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The Heat’s Jimmy Butler, right, saying no to Lebron James on Sunday. Butler was valiant in defeat during the N.B.A. finals.JOHN RAOUX/ASSOCIATED PRESSSOCCER
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