Column: FFF now has a chance for a fresh start
Corinne Diacre has been sacked as France head coach, despite coming out swinging against allegations thrown at her. Now the FFF has to prove its learned its lessons.
Can a mess this big be fixed? Or will the scars forever remain?
France are in a potential golden generation when it comes to on-field talent, but the off-field tensions that have been bubbling beneath the surface for many years all came to a head in the past month, and the end result is national team head coach Corinne Diacre is gone, to the relief of many national teams fans and apparently to many of her players who have come out and spoken against her tenure in the past month.
To coincide with the chaos, FFF President Noel Le Graët has also resigned his post, not solely related to the Diacre situation, but to comments made about France legend Zinedine Zidane and, more seriously, accusations from a female agent in France regarding sexual harassment from Le Graët.
But the main story from a women's football point of view was the removal of Diacre as head coach. And make no mistakes, she was removed, just 24 hours after she came out swinging against the allegations levelled at her by some of her own players, on International Women's Day of all days.
Diacre did not resign. Previously a distinguished player who achieved 121 caps for her national team and became one of the first women to coach in the men's game, doing so so successful for three years in Clermont she replaced Olivier Echouafni in 2017, it looked like the right appointment for France going into an era where they had key players at their peaks and a whole host of young talent coming through the system.
But it has never worked out, not on the field, nor off it. Diacre's list of controversies reads far too long for any head coach, let alone for one in charge of one of the top five nations in world football.
Wendie Renard, a legend of French football and the pillar of the national team, was the first to speak out against Diacre, releasing a statement last month out of the blue saying she would be stepping away from national team duties as she “can no longer support the current system, which is far from the requirements of the highest level”.
Tension between the pair go back to almost day one, when Diacre made the bold move of stripping Renard of the France captaincy when she took charge and giving the armband to Lyon teammate Amandine Henry.
Renard and Diacre have never seen eye-to-eye since and Renard was open in her criticisms of her former head coach in her autobiography, and it shows how extreme things finally got for Renard to take the drastic step of walking away from the team after six years of working with Diacre, and a World Cup.
Come her first major tournament in 2019, Diacre left out several big names, including the team's most promising young player and top scorer in the domestic league, PSG's Marie-Antoinette Katoto.
France went out of the quarter-finals to the USA thanks to a Megan Rapinoe brace, and ever the opportunist when it comes to speaking out, even Rapinoe herself questioned some of Diacre's moves and suggested maybe a change in management for the French was required.
But Le Graet and the FFF stood steadfast by their head coach, despite Diacre coming out to criticise Eugenie Le Sommer's role, much to the disdain of Lyon President Jean-Michel Aulas and then head coach Reynald Pedros. Diacre did apologise to Le Sommer, but that was another relationship with a key player broken and she hasn't represented France in almost three years.
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Gaetane Thiney also spoke out against Diacre's tactics in 2020 and was promptly dropped from the squad, but the tensions continued to rise. Aulas and Pedros had hinted at "inconceivable" things they'd heard regarding France's preparation for the 2019 World Cup, things the world never knew, but perhaps now do off the back of various statements from not just Renard, but also Katoto and PSG teammate Kadidiatou Diani.
Another experienced player, goalkeeper Sarah Bouhaddi, was the next to go, stating “Winning a title with this coach seems impossible to me. We play in a very, very negative environment. I don't see myself winning anything with this manager, and a lot of players think so too but don't say it.” Next up it was Amandine Henry, dropped towards the end of 2020 and apart from a brief stay of execution, never selected since. This drew more criticism from Pedros who spoke of a "complicated" relationship between the players and Diacre and that players returned from camps "psychologically affected".
Diacre, as she does, came out swinging, suggesting Pedros was jealous of her role as head coach of the national team. In reality, how it ever got to 2023 is incredible, given the clear fractions within the camp.
Even Clermont players started to speak out and their accusations played a similar tune to those of the national team players. Forcing players out with little reason, constantly doing things for the "good of the group". Perhaps through all this Diacre did genuinely believe she was removing players for the good of the group, but it appears she never realised even until the day she was fired how mentally tiring her ways were with her players, even when three of her star players gave up a World Cup dream just to get away from the environment.
Henry said players, including herself, would cry in their rooms. Even her most avid backer, Le Graët, admitted perhaps her communication style needed to change, but continued to back her based on on-pitch results. Her former assistant, Eric Blahic, resigned and said Diacre wanted too much control, and all the signs point to one woman hell-bent on doing things her way or no way.
Things came to boiling points, though little did we know it, at Euro 2022. On the face of things, it seemed like a reasonably good tournament for France given they were without experienced heads such as Bouhaddi, Henry and Le Sommer and Katoto ruptured her ACL early in the second game.
They reached the semi-finals and pushed Germany hard, but as we know now, players were still unhappy with how things were being run by Diacre. In an interview just a week ago with Telefoot off the back of her initial statement, Diani went further in her criticisms of Diacre, just three days before the head coach would finally be removed.
“There is a lack of professionalism in the French team. Today, we have a rather small staff. It is the coach who decides her staff. We don’t have an assistant coach, we don’t have a specific striker coach, I’m talking about that because I’m a striker and it’s true that sometimes I’d like to work in front of goal."
That was just one of the comments from Diani, one of France's most in-form players right now, and she went on to say a change was needed.
The FFF obliged, but it should never have come to this. It shouldn't have come to three star players having to walk away, to the FFF realising they were on a collision course with a World Cup in four months without three key players, to fire a coach who raised question marks with key players from day one - six years ago.
Diacre spoke of a "smear campaign" against her a day before her removal in a statement to AFP via her lawyer. “For over ten days, I’ve been the subject of a smear campaign which is astonishing in its violence and dishonesty.
“My detractors have not hesitated to attack my personal and professional integrity without bothering with the truth.
“I will not let myself be affected by this destabilisation operation, which does not take into account my sporting record, and whose only objective is a personal settling of scores.”
Would Diacre have gone had Le Graët not? Who knows. He was her main supporter, and without his defence the barriers to her removal were largely withdrawn, but again, it shouldn't have come this far.
The FFF have acted, but the players have remained quiet. Perhaps gauging their next moves, yet perhaps wondering if more still needs to be done within the FFF, particularly when it comes to Diacre's replacement, to see if they want to come back. Psychological scars don't leave, even if those responsible do, and it would be no surprise if all three are taking some time to ponder what has happened and if they want to put themselves back in that environment just yet.
Katoto's statement was the most stark. This is a player who before injury was one of the best forwards in the world. Diacre ensured she missed her first shot at a major tournament while injury largely robbed her of a second. For her to give up a World Cup after what she's missed so far speaks far louder than any words any party on either side could say.
It also makes the current situation across the border in Spain all the more remarkable as the RFEF wrestle with a similar situation, on an even grander scale. The criticism of Spain head coach Jorge Vilda haven't been as vocal and widespread over time as they were with Diacre, but they have lost 15 key players who decided they are happier outside the national team, not three. Spain, another nation in the midst of a golden generation, are embarking on a World Cup without two-thirds of their first choice squad, and they don't seem too fussed.
In France, it's an opportunity for change. The women's game has been too surrounded by too many scandals in recent years, whether it be Diacre or domestic football, particularly at PSG.
There were also stories of historic sexual abuse of underage players at the nation's Clairefontaine training facility, stretching back as far as 1980 and allegedly implicating former national team player Angelique Roujas, who was head of the women's section at Clairefontaine for a period. She was removed from her role within the FFF in 2013 for several complaints over sexual harassment while similar allegations were made against former national team head coach Elisabeth Loisel.
Under the right circumstances and with key players in a good place, France has a good chance of success on the pitch this summer. The removal of Diacre and subsequent future changes guarantee nothing in a more competitive field than ever, but let's hope for the sake of the players we see a happy and cohesive France team this summer, because god only knows they deserve the opportunity.