The French Football Federation (FFF) today decided to retain the services of their manager Raymond Domenech despite Les Bleus' ignominious first-round failure at Euro 2008. The decision is sure to anger the manager's many detractors among French fans and media, but it will not surprise many – for sacking him would have been both costly and embarrassing for the FFF, who had extended his contract by two years just prior to Euro 2008.
Domenech's reprieve came after he gave a presentation on that failure to the FFF's 21-member federal council, with 18 of the council members voting in favour of the current incumbent, one abstention and two absentees. It may, however, be merely a stay of execution, for Domenech reportedly has been warned that his position will be reassessed after France's first three qualifiers for the 2010 World Cup. Intriguingly, the third of those is away to Romania, the side against whom France opened their Euro 2008 campaign with an insipid 0-0 draw.
Despite the fact that that was the only point they gained in the tournament, the performance was so aimless and uninspired that it has become one of the biggest sticks with which detractors have beaten Domenech, bigger than the subsequent defeats to Holland and Italy. Even before today's meeting, FFF president Jean-Pierre Escalettes, a firm supporter of Domenech, said he wanted to see a radical change in the team's cautious playing style, demanding a "triumphant, ambitious team capable of placing itself very quickly at a very high international level".
In addition to his conservative tactics, Domenech has been widely assailed for controversial selections, such as the omissions of Robert Pires and Ludovic Giuly from the 2006 World Cup and Philippe Mexes from Euro 2008, and a spiky personality that is sometimes perceived as bordering on megalomania.
He played into his detractors hands in the immediate aftermath of France's defeat to Italy last month, when, in a live television interview, he declined to discuss Les Bleus' elimination and instead asked his girlfriend, TV presenter Estelle Denis, to marry him (she has yet to make public her response). When he did finally address the more pertinent issues, he blamed France's failure on bad luck, harsh refereeing and unfavourable weather and claimed his only mistake was to have declared before the tournament that France were capable of winning it – he said he should have explained that his real target was the 2010 World Cup.
Some of Domenech's most acerbic critics were members of France's 1998 World Cup-winning squad, with Zinedine Zidane, Bixente Lizarazu and Christophe Dugarry all calling for him to be replaced by the victorious 1998 captain, Didier Deschamps. Domenech did, however, go in today's meeting with the public support of some of the current players, including Franck Ribery, Patrick Vieira and Sidney Govou, who denied reports that the Euro 2008 campaign was undermined by in-fighting and insisted that it was the players, rather than the manager, who underperformed.
Speaking after announcing today's decision, Escalettes said that Domenech had admitted making "a whole series of mistakes" during his time in charge. He referred to "public relations that were at times disastrous because they were too personalised" and "excessive aggression and a lack of transparency" which combined to "rub salt in wounds".
"Euro 2008 was a resounding failure, not very glorious from a sporting view point and, perhaps more seriously, in terms of how it tarnished the image of the French national team", said Escalettes. "The first person responsible is the manager. He isolated himself, and today he explained to us how. The players share responsibility too, as do the president off the FFF and the members of the federal council who didn't want to detect the failure because of the success of 2006."
Escalettes has been ordered to henceforth "communicate only about the team, not his own mood and feelings."
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