A dispute has broken out between Marseilles, the club that recently recruited Laure Manaudou, and the French swim federation. The Fédération Française de Natation met representatives of the Cercle des Nageurs de Marseille today to debate the thorny issue of why the club's top swimmers have not made themselves available to represent France at the Berlin round of the World Cup on November 15-16.
The club, where sprinters Frédérick Bousquet and Fabien Gilot are based and to which Esther Baron and then Manaudou moved has opted to race at the Saint-Dizier meet on November 14-15-16 and give the final round of the World Cup a miss.
In a post-meeting statement, the federation said: "If all the points raised cannot be clarified in a way that improve our relationship (FFN and Marseille) then the two parties understood that further discussions will take place to guarantee the best outcome for national team swimmers in future."
