Top 14: “We cannot manage a club like a factory”, the anger and concern of Clermont supporters

The alert level has been exceeded. A group of Clermont supporters has just published a long open letter, viewed more than 13,000 times on the social network “Since 2019, the fall has been slow and seems inexorable as the weight of the glorious past years seems to be bogging the club down in a situation from which it will have difficulty recovering, worry Auvergne supporters. How far away the days of the flamboyant game, of a volcanic Michelin every weekend until the final stages in white-hot stadiums and of the late sign of the Michelin corridor, adorning above the heads of the visitors the astronomical number of consecutive victories for the Jaunards on their lawn..."

The observation is lucid. The team crowned French champions in 2010 and 2017 - second supplier of internationals for the French XV in the early 2000s - has lost its splendor. Unhealthy inconsistency, checkered results, strongly degraded image, since its final lost in 2019 against Toulouse, the Auvergne club no longer qualified for the final phases of the Top 14. While it remained, from the time of its great era, on eleven qualifications in a row between 2007 and 2017. Which pushed five supporters of the club to publish this missive intended for the managers, the staff and, also, the other members of the famous “Yellow Army”, who had made a name for itself throughout the Old Continent.

“We took a week to write it, taking inspiration from what RC Toulon supporters had done recently,” explains Stéphane (first name changed), one of the editors, to Le Figaro. We are very pessimistic about the future of the club. We are currently 10th but we will be 13th after the next day, or the day after that, because we have two trips to Racing 92 and UBB.

The new management of the club is singled out for its choices and its orientations. Accused in particular of leaving aside training, which has long been one of the strengths of the ASM. “The whole training policy is not working,” laments Stéphane. We have made this observation but we also have proposals, particularly regarding young people and how to train them. A young man like Killian Tixeront was captain of the under-20s two years ago, today he has playing time but he is not transcendent. If he went to UBB, he would become a great player... The managers and the staff do not trust the young people. The departure of Damian Penaud, icon of the club who is now in the heyday of Bordeaux-Bègles, made a strong impression.

“Now we are afraid that a player like (scrum half) Baptiste Jauneau will leave. During the international period, he would have been a starter in any club, regrets this fervent supporter of ASM. There, he was only a substitute, playing only around twenty minutes. We lost Penaud a year ago and, there, he is our future leader. Partners must ask themselves questions: why is the best player in the years to come not playing? We have to give him the keys to the truck. The staff doesn’t trust him.”

In the eye of the storm: the management of Christophe Urios, “a short-termist who wants to win quickly at all costs”, arrived in January 2023 in Auvergne but who has not succeeded in relaunching a machine that is moving slowly. “We know that under-20 world champions had offered to join ASM, notably Paul Costes (20 years old, center of Toulouse, Editor's note), but we did not follow up. We are reaching the limit of the policy of Christophe Urios who does not trust young people. There are plenty of examples in his career as a manager, points out Stéphane. He did not trust Antoine Dupont in Castres, he did not play Yoan Tanga at the CO. And he was reluctant to launch Bielle-Biarrey and Depoortère at UBB.” And scathing: “There are incomprehensible choices. Players like Samuel Azeala (Pau) or Judicaël Cancoriet (La Rochelle) will shine elsewhere, even though they were with us and attached to the club. Not to mention the non-extension of Julien Hériteau..."

This open letter was sent directly to the club's leaders: to president Jean-Claude Pats, to CEO Benoît Vaz and to a member of the board of directors who works at Michelin, Xavier Durand. “We also knew that Aurélien Rougerie read it last week,” says Stéphane. Before continuing: “Jean-Claude Pats is only present at the club one day a week. We do not question his skills. But he came in saying: “We’re going to run a rugby club like a factory.” This is false, this is not possible. The CEO has no rugby skills. This is not the case in all the other major clubs in the Top 14. The example of the ASM resembles that of the RCT, their president must not know much about rugby and he is doing it very badly. There are similarities. This cannot work, even in the short term.”

Hence this rant, which is nevertheless intended to be constructive. “We were wondering what to do to make things happen. We each ruminated on our own. We couldn't alert people to what was happening, it's not good for the months and years to come,” worries Stéphane. This group of Auvergne supporters raises another question: “We have had a glorious decade and here we are looking between the soft underbelly and relegation. We want the people who run the club to wake up to the current situation. We also don't understand what a person with real skills like Didier Retière (former DTN who arrived in April 2022 as director of sports development, Editor's note) does. Does he have enough power to change things? We do not know..."

One certainty: a third season without finals in the Top 14 is looming for this club which only finished 10th last year. “A monument in danger”, as Toulon called it, triggering a small diplomatic crisis between the clubs. But it is indeed a reality.