Biarritz made to pay price - again

HISTORIC French rugby side Biarritz were relegated from the ProD2 on Monday for financial reasons, just over a year after they were saved from the same fate when they were bought for a nominal €1.

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The club immediately announced its intention to appeal against the decision.

After a mid-season slump that had seen them drop worryingly close to the drop zone, two wins in their last three games saw the Basque side climb to the relatively calm waters of mid-table mediocrity.

But it wouldn’t be the ProD2—or Biarritz for that matter — without some sort of inter-season drama. On a slight tangent, on the same day as the Biarritz news broke, Agen decided to part ways with head coach Sebastien Calvet after just one season, after it emerged he had ‘lost’ a key part of the dressing room. Meanwhile, Beziers’ players came out in support of their head coach Pierre Caillet, all signing a strongly worded open letter to their new owners in light of news that he had been ‘invited to leave’ Stade Raoul-Barriére.

But, back to Biarritz. A year ago, the club was spared when a consortium headed by Shaun Hegarty, Flip van der Merwe and Mare Baget took over, bringing to an end a turbulent period under Vincent Gave and Jean-Baptiste Aldige who had, seven years previously, saved the club from disappearing.

“We're giving ourselves three years to make the club as healthy as possible with a sustainable economy in the ProD2,” Hegarty told journalists a few weeks after the buyout.