Jean Raynal (18 August 1929 – January 2015) was a French sports journalist, who worked for

Office de Radiodiffusion Télévision Française The (; ORTF; , or French Radio and Television Broadcasting Office) was the national agency charged, between 1964 and 1975, with providing public radio and television in France. All programming, especially news broadcasts, were under strict cont ...

and

TF1 TF1 (; standing for ''Télévision Française 1'') is a French commercial television network owned by TF1 Group, controlled by the Bouygues conglomerate. TF1's average market share of 24% makes it the most popular domestic network. TF1 is part ...

. He commentated on football, rugby, basketball, and the

Olympic Games The modern Olympic Games (Olympics; ) are the world's preeminent international Olympic sports, sporting events. They feature summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a Multi-s ...

. He was nicknamed ''Monsieur Basket'' (Mr Basketball).

Personal life

Raynal was born in

Massiac Massiac (; ) is a commune in the Cantal department in south-central France. Population Local history In the 17th century, Massiac was ruled by the feudal lord Gaspard d'Espinchal, a notorious murderer, kidnapper, and nobleman who was pur ...

Cantal Cantal (; or ) is a rural Departments of France, department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Regions of France, region of France, with its Prefectures in France, prefecture in Aurillac. Its other principal towns are Saint-Flour, Cantal, Saint-Flou ...

, France. He studied at the

Centre de formation des journalistes The ''Centre de formation des journalistes'' (in English: ''Institute for the Training of Journalists'') or CFJ Graduate School of Journalism is a private non-profit ''Grande École'' and the Paris-Panthéon-Assas University graduate school of ...

in Paris.

Career

Raynal began his work as a radio presenter in 1957. In 1968, Raynal became a television presenter on

, and was one of the first five members of the organisation's committee on objective journalism. From 1975 to 1988, Raynal worked for

. Raynal commentated at five

FIFA World Cup The FIFA World Cup, often called the World Cup, is an international association football competition among the senior List of men's national association football teams, men's national teams of the members of the FIFA, Fédération Internatio ...

s; he commentated at the

1978 FIFA World Cup The 1978 FIFA World Cup was the 11th edition of the FIFA World Cup, a Anniversary#Latin-derived numerical names, quadrennial international Association football, football world championship tournament among the men's senior national teams. It wa ...

alongside

Pierre Cangioni Pierre Cangioni (born 29 July 1939) is a French sports journalist, best known for presenting the French Association football, football television programme ''Téléfoot'' from 1977 to 1982. He was the List of Olympique de Marseille managers an ...

. Between 1983 and 1984, Raynal presented one season of TF1's football programme

Téléfoot ''Téléfoot'' is a French football programme produced by TF1 Production for TF1. The programme was created by Pierre Cangioni in 1977 to show French Division 1 highlights. Téléfoot now covers France international matches, European club c ...

. Aside from football, Raynal covered basketball in the 1970s and 1980s. Raynal was nicknamed "Monsieur Basket" (Mr Basketball), and in 1980, he wrote the book ''La Fabuleuse histoire du basket'' (''The fabulous history of basketball''). Raynal also covered 26

French Open The French Open (), also known as Roland-Garros (), is a tennis tournament organized by the French Tennis Federation annually at Stade Roland Garros in Paris, France. It is chronologically the second of the four Grand Slam (tennis), Grand Slam ...

tennis championships, and six

. He commentated with

Raoul Barrière Raoul Barrière (3 March 1928, in Béziers – 8 March 2019) was a French rugby union player and a coach."L'homme qui a «fait» l'équipe de Béziers, c'est incontestablement l'entraîneur Raoul Barrière, 45 ans, un nez cassé de boxeur et une ...

at the

1978–79 French Rugby Union Championship The 1979–79 French Rugby Union Championship was won by RC Narbonne, Narbonne beating Stade Bagnérais in the final. Formula The tournament was played by 80 clubs divided into two groups (A and B) of 40. The "élite" (group A) was f ...

final, where

Narbonne Narbonne ( , , ; ; ; Late Latin:) is a commune in Southern France in the Occitanie region. It lies from Paris in the Aude department, of which it is a sub-prefecture. It is located about from the shores of the Mediterranean Sea and was ...

beat

Stade Bagnérais Stade Bagnérais () is a French rugby union club currently competing at the third level of the French league system (Fédérale 1). They are based in Bagnères-de-Bigorre, a small town of 8,000 inhabitants, in the Hautes-Pyrénées département, ...

. Fellow sports journalist Didier Roustan said that Raynal was his inspiration.

Works

* Raynal, Jean, ''Le volley-ball'' (''Volleyball''), 1977 * Raynal, Jean, ''La Fabuleuse histoire du basket'' (''The fabulous history of basketball''), 1980

Death

Raynal died in 2015 at the age of 85.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Raynal, Jean French sports journalists 1929 births 2015 deaths Sportspeople from Cantal French television presenters Association football commentators Rugby union commentators Basketball announcers