“The fraudster shaking French football” headlines the front page of L’Equipe on November 22. “The Fraudster” was also a fake municipal real estate agent in the Alpes-Maritimes in a case revealed in June 2006. Xavier Pettinato, a former member of Jacques Peyrat’s staff, 27 years old, practiced his fraud skills for 18 months in Nice, extracting one million euros from five individuals. He pretended he was in charge of selling apartments from the Nice City housing portfolio. He even went as far as forging the signature of the Senator Mayor. The victims paid him 200,000€ in exchange for fake sales promises. Jacques Peyrat terminated his employment in February 2005, but Xavier continued his small-scale scams nonetheless.
The mayor’s staff had hired him because he was portrayed as a political prodigy. He graduated in Political Science with high honors. Despite his young age, Xavier seems to have led several lives. He presents himself as a special advisor to Nicolas Sarkozy or a collaborator with Gilles de Robien. Given the revelations of this affair, one could ask: how could the Nice City Hall and the victims have been deceived by this young man?
The UMP deputy Jérôme Rivière was also duped, as revealed by journalist Raphaël Raymond, author of the report in L’Equipe: “He asked Jérôme Rivière to intervene with Gilles de Robien (then Minister of Transport) to obtain an internship for preparing for the A-level public service exam.” Today, if we are talking about it again, it is because of the scandal in football. The affair dates back to 2003. Xavier Pettinato, whose father is a manager of the Corsican football league, is passionate about this sport and dreams of working in it. Once accepted into the football world, or to be accepted, he sold mobile phones, computers, and sports clothing at very low prices to referees. He pretended to be a technical advisor to Nicolas Sarkozy, Minister of the Interior. Michel Vautrot, then head of French referees, became concerned but was sidelined from refereeing bodies. Now the question is why Xavier Pettinato was offering such benefits to referees? As for his defense, he would plead for civil criminal irresponsibility at the time of the offenses. We likely haven’t heard the last of this affair in Nice and elsewhere.
For further information here are two articles:
https://www.lemonde.fr/web/article/0,1-0@2-3242,36-836860@51-812356,0.html
https://www.lequipe.fr/Football/20061122_093649Dev.html
