French rugby union president Bernard Laporte walks at Stade de France stadium in Saint-Denis, Paris on June 24, 2022. Photo: AFP

Bernard Laporte, a towering figure in French rugby, goes on trial on Wednesday on charges of corruption and influence-peddling in a high-profile case making big waves only a year before France hosts the World Cup.

The 58-year-old former France coach is accused of favoritism in awarding a shirt sponsor contract for the national side to a close friend, Mohed Altrad, the billionaire owner of Top 14 champions Montpellier.

The five officials in the dock also include Claude Atcher, who was recently suspended as managing director of the 2023 World Cup organization, and French Rugby Federation (FFR) vice president Serge Simon.

The trial runs to September 22.

"The accusations against Bernard Laporte are completely trumped-up, notably because everything he did was in the best interest of the Federation," his lawyer, Jean-Pierre Versini-Campinchi, told AFP.

However, France's financial crimes unit PNF disagrees. Its investigation into the dealings of Laporte, who was minister for sports in president Nicolas Sarkozy's government from 2007 to 2009, concluded that he was guilty of illegal influence-peddling and passive corruption, mostly for the benefit of Altrad.

The two men's friendship and business links are at the heart of the case, which goes back to February 2017 when they signed a deal under which Laporte, then head of the FFR federation, agreed to appear in Altrad group conferences, and sold his image reproduction rights, in return for 180,000 euros (then around $190,000).

'A fighter'

But while that sum was indeed paid to Laporte, prosecutors claim that he never actually provided the services he signed up for.

He did, however, make several public statements backing Altrad and, in March 2017, signed a 1.8 million euro deal with the businessman making his eponymous firm the first-ever sponsor to appear on the French national team's jerseys.

Even now, Altrad's logo features on team's shirts thanks to a follow-up deal negotiated by Laporte in 2018 and which prosecutors say bears all the hallmarks of corruption.

Laporte is further accused of intervening with French rugby's federal disciplinary commission which reduced a fine against an Altrad company to 20,000 euros after a call from Laporte, from an original 70,000 euros.

While prosecutors see this and several more incidents proof of illicit favoritism, Laporte himself claimed that there was no "cause-effect relationship," and said that he himself canceled the contract in the summer of 2017 when press reports began to question the nature of the relationship between the two men.

The trial will also examine the links between Claude Atcher and the FFR from 2017 to 2018 when Atcher's company, Sport SV, won contracts for four missions, mostly linked to the French bid for the 2023 World Cup.

Prosecutors say one of those missions, worth 21,000 euros, was never carried out, but Laporte still signed off on a bonus payment to Sport XV of 30,000 euros.

Prosecutors say the deals swindled the FFR out of an estimated total of 80,000 euros.

Five years of investigation have shaken the French rugby world, and hurt Laporte's reputation, but he still got himself reelected as FFR boss at the end of 2020.

"He is confident," his lawyer Versini-Campinchi said. 

"His mindset is that of a fighter," he said.

AFP