PARIS: Guy Forget is to step down as director of both the French Open and the Paris Masters at the end of the year when his contract ends, the French Tennis Federation (FFT) announced on Tuesday.

The reasons for his departure are not specified. According to the sports daily L’Equipe, Forget, 56, presented his resignation to the president of the FFT Gilles Moretton on Tuesday morning.

“Guy Forget, whose contract ends on Dec 31, 2021, is stepping down as director of the Roland-Garros tournament and of the Paris Masters. His successor for the Grand Slam will be announced in the coming days,” said the FFT in a statement.

The announcement comes just a month after Forget was cleared of any wrong-doing by the FFT’s ethics committee following his naming in an investigation into a tax avoidance scheme in the tax haven of the British Virgin Islands.

Forget’s name was cited in early October in the Pandora Papers, an investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), according to which he had benefitted from tax packages in the British Virgin Islands.

The FFT’s ethics committee cleared Forget on November 5 “in the absence of established tax evasion or other criminally reprehensible behaviour”.

The former French number one took over as director of the Masters in 2012 adding the French Open to his portfolio four years later.

Published in Dawn, December 8th, 2021