Francis Graille (born 25 April 1955) is a French businessman and executive. He has worked for various media companies, and served as the president of professional

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

clubs

Lille OSC Lille Olympique Sporting Club (), commonly referred to as LOSC, LOSC Lille or simply Lille, is a French professional football club based in Lille, Hauts-de-France that competes in Ligue 1, the top flight of French football. Lille has played its ...

, Paris Saint-Germain, and AJ Auxerre.

Career

In 1982, Graille began his career working as a local correspondent for news agency

Agence France-Presse Agence France-Presse (AFP) is a French international news agency headquartered in Paris, France. Founded in 1835 as Havas, it is the world's oldest news agency. AFP has regional headquarters in Nicosia, Montevideo, Hong Kong and Washington, D.C ...

in his native Le Puy-en-Velay. In 1986, he became a regional manager at radio station

NRJ NRJ (NRJ is an acronym read as Nouvelle Radio Jeune, or ''énergie'' in French, pronounced , literally "energy") is a private French radio station created by Jean-Paul Baudecroux and Max Guazzini in June 1981, and was widely popularized than ...

, before discovering the world of television with

Télé Lyon Métropole Télé Lyon Métropole is a private local TV channel in the greater Lyon area. The beginning Télé Lyon Métropole (TLM) was launched on 25 November, 1988 by Roger Caille, director of Jet Services, in the Tour du Crédit Lyonnais. Programmi ...

. Graille would go on to found Concept TV and Visual TV, two television production companies. From 1999 to 2002, Graille worked as the director of football club

, in association with . From 2003 to 2005, he was the president of Paris Saint-Germain. In 2006, Graille started working in

film production Filmmaking (film production) is the process by which a motion picture is produced. Filmmaking involves a number of complex and discrete stages, starting with an initial story, idea, or commission. It then continues through screenwriting, casti ...

by founding Holi Films. In 2007, he became an executive at Sportfive, which had been recently acquired by Lagardère Group. He was in charge of the company's media branch, and specialized in the promotion of TV rights. He left Sportfive in 2009. In June 2010, Graille received an eight-month

suspended sentence A suspended sentence is a sentence on conviction for a criminal offence, the serving of which the court orders to be deferred in order to allow the defendant to perform a period of probation. If the defendant does not break the law during that ...

and a €20,000 fine for illegal transfer dealings during his time as the president of Paris Saint-Germain. His predecessor was also convicted. On 17 May 2017, Graille became the president of football club AJ Auxerre, as a representative of Chinese majority owner ORG Technology. He left in May 2021, and was replaced by , the owner of ORG Technology.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Graille, Francis 1955 births Living people 20th-century French businesspeople 21st-century French businesspeople French football chairmen and investors Paris Saint-Germain F.C. presidents French media executives Lille OSC non-playing staff AJ Auxerre non-playing staff