STADE FRANCAIS (and I thought the Ospreys were a shambles)

The plot thickens as a 3rd person is arrested.
While Stade Français bosses Max Guazzini and Bernard Laporte were meeting with the French Minister of Sport on Thursday, the police took a third person into custody
http://www.planetrugby.co.uk/story/0,25883,16024_7002807,00.html

This comes on top of the ‘banruptcy issues’ and Cheika’s run-in with the authorities
http://www.planetrugby.com/story/0,25883,9818_7001093,00.html
http://www.planetrugby.com/story/0,25883,9818_7002031,00.html

What do fellow posters think ?
Should they go allowed to the wall ?
What impact would that have on the Amlin and Worcester in particular ?
What are the implications for the Top 14 and other clubs who have ‘spent big’ ?

MICK (TEFC) your insight on French rugby would be particularly helpful

i wonder what all the players that signed for them this summer are thinking

PenfroPete wrote:The plot thickens as a 3rd person is arrested.
While Stade Français bosses Max Guazzini and Bernard Laporte were meeting with the French Minister of Sport on Thursday, the police took a third person into custody
http://www.planetrugby.co.uk/story/0,25883,16024_7002807,00.html

This comes on top of the ‘banruptcy issues’ and Cheika’s run-in with the authorities
http://www.planetrugby.com/story/0,25883,9818_7001093,00.html
http://www.planetrugby.com/story/0,25883,9818_7002031,00.html

What do fellow posters think ?
Should they go allowed to the wall ?
What impact would that have on the Amlin and Worcester in particular ?
What are the implications for the Top 14 and other clubs who have ‘spent big’ ?

MICK (TEFC) your insight on French rugby would be particularly helpful

Penfro, I'm being thick - would Worcs automatically get the Amlin spot rather than another French team (ie the one promoted to the T14 in their place)?

Looks like, for Stade in particular, that the party is at an end....

ASBO - yes you are being thick
Worcester are in POOL A - along with Bucharest Wolves, Crociati Parma & Stade. So if Stade get booted out, who would come in ? Would the pools be re-jigged ?
From your viewpoint, would Exceutor be moved from their current group !!

Haha Pete Stade may be a shombles but don't worry the ospreys are too, still a shred of normality, the world hasn't gone completely crazy yet

Yeah I'd say Warwick is sorry he left Munster now!!

Ah well...

Boyne wrote:Yeah I'd say Warwick is sorry he left Munster now!!

Ah well...

what about big stan leaving leinster for them
poor stan, he deserves better

They still should have a good squad and team though no?

...and Cheika... and Dr Phil...

Monday will be the 4th deadline they've had to meet this season;how on earth can this club,who pride themselves on bringing French rugby into the professional era,be so naive as this? Laporte,who has very doubtful credentials(on and off the pitch) came into the SF set up,after being refused entry at Bayonne, and reportedly got stung for 150,000 yoyos in a scam set up by Canadian pastors(his words).

and now the French sport minister is also trying to rescue a club that seriously doesn't know how to run their accounts.Montauban,Albi and others were relegated for much lesser debts.

If they get e repechage, it should be on the basis of ZERO recruitment and a minimum 15 point penalty at the start of the season.

Special treatment for Stade? Sad to see.

Sad but not unexpected. They're still a well known "brand" unlike Albi.

We got into the HC years ago (2003?) even though technically we finished the ML lower than Connacht. But it was before ML performance was used to select the teams. We're a bigger name and the IRFU needed us for the marketing.

And the FFR don't want Stade de France being used for a pro-am match on a regular basis.

Mick(TEFC) wrote:Monday will be the 4th deadline they've had to meet this season;how on earth can this club,who pride themselves on bringing French rugby into the professional era,be so naive as this? Laporte,who has very doubtful credentials(on and off the pitch) came into the SF set up,after being refused entry at Bayonne, and reportedly got stung for 150,000 yoyos in a scam set up by Canadian pastors(his words).

and now the French sport minister is also trying to rescue a club that seriously doesn't know how to run their accounts.Montauban,Albi and others were relegated for much lesser debts.

If they get e repechage, it should be on the basis of ZERO recruitment and a minimum 15 point penalty at the start of the season.

French sport minister has no say in that area, she did receive SF but was more for the matter of giving some support and because of the fraud issue but at the end the DNAGC is independent. The process is the same for every club: they all show their accounts once a year, if it's not good, they meet a second time and so one : it took 2 seasons for bourgoin to be relegated so SF not getting any favors...yet. SF are now litteraly begging anyone to invest in their club which I find a bit sad (rather see them playing in pro d2 next year with their pride than being bought by some kind of financial vulture).

there is a lot of passion here around that problem; no matter what people believe what is right/fair or not, SF is more important to french rugby than Montauban and Bourgouin: they fill stadiums and have been a great marketing tool for the french league (they also won 5 titles in 10 years if I remember correctly). SF going down will hurt french rubgy more than some other clubs.
am not a fan of SF and their marketing ploys but cant ignore those facts.

PenfroPete wrote:ASBO - yes you are being thick
Worcester are in POOL A - along with Bucharest Wolves, Crociati Parma & Stade. So if Stade get booted out, who would come in ? Would the pools be re-jigged ?
From your viewpoint, would Exceutor be moved from their current group !!

Penfro,

What should happen is IF Stade get booted out, Dragons should move up to tier one because they were next in line seedings/rankings wise. So with that, the groups would get redrawn. However I suspect there would be another French team brought in possibly, so the draw can remain the same? We shall find out soon I guess, but with the ERC running it, who knows?

Never liked the way Stade were run tbh. Could be the artificial atmosphere generated by the money pumped through, the thought that by buying the players they are buying the trophies. One of the closest examples to a football club.

That and Max Guazzini has shown himself up time and time again to be a hissing twit

From my own vague understanding of rugby in Paris, I was always of the opinion that Racing Metro had the core support of the city and a lot of the people who would go to Stade games, get the jerseys (god knows why?) were closer to Racing as a club but supported Stade as the only Paris team in the Top14. As soon as Racing made it up into the top flight, supporters slowly gave up Stade and moved back to Racing.

Is that way off? Because if not, it sounds like Stade decided to spend big to try and keep the fans coming in but were always going to be on the losing end of trying spend there way into holding their position.

Rev I guess that would depend on when a final decision is taken.

if the pool fixtures are already agreed with the TV companies before any sanctions are announced then the ERC will probably not want to put out fans that have already booked flights and hotels for away games.

For the amlin, I reckon it will remain the same ,just a straight swap ASR for SF.

My reference to Juanno being drawn into the debat,whocares, is exactly that;why should the national govt. be involved? This is local,Parisian politics,the woman is a future candidate for an arrondisment, and then later for Paris(her words this morning on France Info).

true, that what politicians do here anyway: get involved in anything that sells papers. just words in this case though.
Racing is actually more a suburbian club than Parisian as Stade claims to be; one has to give some credit to Max Guazinni for the job he has done starting from nothing (SF were in Federale 1 when he got involved) : he got parisians interested in something else than 6N games although the way he has achieved can offend the more oldschool rugby supporters (I remember when they were giving away balloons and other goodies, it was more a tour de france thing to be honest)

greybeard wrote:Rev I guess that would depend on when a final decision is taken.

if the pool fixtures are already agreed with the TV companies before any sanctions are announced then the ERC will probably not want to put out fans that have already booked flights and hotels for away games.

This is true and with the way the groups are set up anyway (at least 1 English and 1 French team per group etc), I'd doubt they'd be too keen to redraw anything regardless of the time the final decision is reached.