French business mogul and former politician Bernard Tapie, whose career was marked by a series of notable judicial setbacks, died at the age of 78 after a four-year battle with cancer, his family announced Sunday.
“Dominique Tapie and her family have the immense sadness to announce the death of her husband and her father, Bernard Tapie, this Sunday,” read a statement sent to the Marseille newspaper ‘La Provence’, of which Tapie was the majority shareholder.
Tapie, whose business interests included a stake in sportswear brand Adidas, suffered from stomach cancer.
🔵 Des roses blanches ont été distribuées aux supporters présents pour les déposer au pied du portrait de Bernard #Tapie, érigé sur le parvis du Vélodrome pic.twitter.com/NsrlQSlqMm
– La Provence (@laprovence) October 3, 2021
He was president of the Olympique de Marseille football club, which he led to the Champions League title in 1993. He was subsequently sent to prison for corruption in a match-fixing scandal in the French first division.
“Olympique de Marseille learned of the death of Bernard Tapie with deep sadness. He will leave a great void in the hearts of the people of Marseille and will forever remain the club’s legend,” the club reported.
Emmanuel Macron says goodbye to Tapie as a “golden legend”
French President Emmanuel Macron and First Lady Brigitte Macron issued a message calling Tapie a “golden legend” who, however, was followed by the many “shadows” of his judicial sagas.
“The man who had enough fighting spirit to move mountains and topple the moon never lowered his arms, battling cancer until its last moments,” the statement said, adding that Tapie’s “ambition, energy and enthusiasm” had inspired “generations of French”.
Prime Minister Jean Castex also paid tribute to Tapie, who was also a minister in the government in the 1990s, describing him as a “fighter”.
Stéphane Tapie, one of Tapie’s sons, signaled his death with a post on Instagram that read: “Goodbye, my Phoenix.”
“He left in peace, surrounded by his wife, his children and grandchildren, who were by his bedside,” the family statement said, detailing that Tapie wanted to be buried in Marseille, “the city of his heart.”
The son of a plumber, Tapie was born in Paris in 1943 and emerged from a poor childhood in the suburbs to become one of the richest men in France. He also devoted himself to politics, becoming a Minister for the City under the socialist government of François Mitterrand in the 1990s and later a deputy in the French and European Parliaments.
Tapie began selling televisions in the working-class neighborhood of Paris, Belleville, while trying his luck as a singer at night. However, he soon abandoned these activities and by age 30 he had already created a small empire by acquiring bankrupt companies and selling them for millions.
The permanently tanned tycoon flaunted his newfound wealth, buying a massive house in Paris and a series of mansions on the French Riviera, as well as a 72-meter yacht.
“If there is something I know how to do, it is to make money,” he boasted on one occasion.
“I am ruined”
Tapie also found time to act, taking roles that included a police inspector on a popular television show.
But his empire collapsed dramatically in the late 1990s, beginning with the soccer match-fixing trial that landed him in jail.
After a series of scandals and setbacks, he was forced to admit in 2015 that he was “broke” and had “nothing.”
The Adidas case, an unresolved issue
Tapie also faced legal proceedings for the 1990 purchase of the German sports brand Adidas, which he was forced to sell a few years later to the state bank Crédit Lyonnais. In 2008, an arbitration court determined that Tapie had been the victim of fraud because the bank undervalued Adidas at the time of the sale and then awarded him a compensation of 404 million euros.
The multimillion-dollar price tag shocked public opinion in France and the verdict was clouded by accusations that the court that acquitted him was biased in favor of Tapie, amid doubts about why the dispute was settled by arbitration rather than in the courts.
Christine Lagarde, who was then Minister of Economy, decided not to appeal the sentence, a decision for which she was found guilty of negligence in 2016 by a court that resolves cases of ministerial misconduct.
Lagarde’s handling of the case raised suspicions that his former boss, Nicolas Sarkozy, whom Tapie had supported for the presidency in 2007, intervened on the businessman’s behalf, accusations Sarkozy has vehemently denied.
In 2017, Tapie was ordered to repay the payment he received for the sale of Adidas, but he later won an appeal and in 2019 was acquitted of fraud in the case.
The prosecutors then appealed and a new case was opened against Tapie. A court found him guilty of fraud over the arbitration agreement with the bank. An appeals court was due to deliver its ruling on Wednesday.
With AFP and Reuters
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