Top 14: towards a sulphurous return of Mohamed Haouas to Montpellier

Biarritz international pillar Mohamed Haouas should make his return to Montpellier, where he spent seven seasons, AFP learned from a source close to the player, confirming information from L'Équipe. According to the sports daily, Haouas (29 years old, 16 caps) has signed up for a season starting this summer. “It’s not done yet. It will succeed but not at any price,” this source told AFP.

The right pillar, trained at MHR, left Hérault this summer for Clermont. But the Auvergne club canceled his arrival on July 1, shortly after Haouas' legal troubles.

Before being sentenced at the end of June by the Montpellier criminal court to 18 months in prison, nine of which were closed, for a fight dating back almost 10 years, Haouas had in fact already been sentenced in May, by the same court, to a year closed for hitting his wife in front of the shopping center where she works.

The international pillar, excluded for his last match in Blue against Scotland (32-21 victory) in February 2023, then signed up with the BO, the Basque team invoking “forgiveness” to justify this recruitment. In Montpellier, where he played between 2016 and 2023, Haouas notably won the Top 14 in 2022 and the European Challenge the previous year.