Football: Vincent Labrune, a president facing the storm

And to say that he no longer wanted to go … Thursday September 10, 2020, the day of the election of the new president of the Professional Football League (LFP), Vincent Labrune is dragging his feet. It’s 11 a.m., and the former OM boss is still in his hotel room. A few hundred meters away, at the headquarters of the League, the votes are turning in his favor. But Vincent Labrune doubts. Does he really want to return to the arena, he who left the Marseille presidency in 2016, bloodless and under police protection ? “That very morning, I was still hesitating, he admits. To tell you the truth, it was my wife who convinced me to go there”. Imagine the revenge for someone who started out as a communicator and whom the world of football has long underestimated, seeing in him only a clever intriguer.

Given a loser against the favorite Michel Denisot – who was supported by the powerful clubs of PSG and Lyon – our man made an underground campaign of formidable efficiency. “He did his business really well, no one saw it coming,” recalls an observer of the institution.

Seizures, Maradona and cigarettes

It must be said that, at the age of 50, Vincent Labrune has a solid experience. He has been navigating LFP bodies for more than ten years, giving leaders the benefit of his experience at the head of OM and his address book. king size. Above all, during the general meeting of December 2019 which validates the “contract of the century” with the ephemeral broadcaster Mediapro, he claims to be one of the only ones to have spoken to prophesy the disaster. Convinced that the Spanish group would quickly fail, Vincent Labrune, not one to play the false modesty, believes that he has the profile and the experience to patch up French football with Canal + and the others.

In twenty-five years of career in the media and production, the native of Orleans, a graduate in economics at the Sorbonne, has indeed constantly managed crises. He even made it his specialty. After starting out at France Télévisions, he worked in Jean-Luc Delarue’s production company (Réservoir Prod), then six years in crisis communication at TF1. Behind, he continues on the OM of Robert and Margarita Louis-Dreyfus. This man who grew up managing the worries of others is always wary when his cell phone rings. This is what prompted him to smoke, he says. Packets of cigarettes are never far away.

In his office, on the first floor of the LFP, we find in good place, framed, two front pages dedicated to Maradona. A true idol for the League boss who, on WhatsApp, even replaced his profile photo with a drawing where the Argentine genius gives his hand back to God on arriving in paradise (reference to the disputed goal scored against England in the FIFA Cup). world). There is also a Stade Malherbe de Caen jersey, the club of his friend and producer Pierre Antoine Capton with whom he produced the film behind the scenes of Emmanuel Macron’s 2017 campaign. These many ancillary activities, Vincent Labrune had to put them on hold to avoid any suspicion of conflict of interest, selling his own production company (Black Dynamite) in 2019. A change of course for the one who has always done four jobs at the same time, whose mandate runs until 2024, and which ensures that there are no questions for the future.

“I prefer to be judged on facts”

When asked the reasons for his long silence in the media, the president of the LFP recognizes that this is a strategy to dry up the debate and focus on the reforms he is carrying out. “I prefer to be judged on facts. And generally speaking, it’s not really my thing to argue,” tackles Vincent Labrune who does not hesitate to pick up his phone to explain himself directly to journalists. On the side of the presidents, we welcome his start to his term. “Vincent knew how to manage very complex files in a moment of historic crisis. He was the right person at the right time”, recognizes Bernard Joannin, the president of the Amiens club.

While violence in the stadiums parasitizes the championship, the boss of the League is virulent on the management of certain clubs and also targets the public authorities who have taken too long to take their responsibilities. He nevertheless welcomes the dialogue finally set up by the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, and his justice counterpart, Eric Dupond-Moretti. It is the prefects who will now set the tempo – and no longer the referees – in the event of serious disturbances. However, his relations with the Minister of Sports, Roxana Maracineanu, remain complicated. Never mind, Vincent Labrune feels “like a fish in water” at the LFP and sees himself quite well put on the clothes of the savior of French football.