The Top 14 (French pronunciation:[tɔpkatɔʀz]) is a professionalrugby union club competition that is played in France. Created in 1892, the Top 14 is at the top of the national league system operated by the France National Rugby League, also known by its French initialism of LNR. There is promotion and relegation between the Top 14 and the next level down, the Rugby Pro D2. The fourteen best rugby teams in France participate in the competition, hence the name Top 14. The competition was previously known as the Top 16.
The league is one of the three major professional leagues in Europe (along with the English Premiership and the United Rugby Championship, which brings together top clubs from Ireland, Wales, Scotland, Italy and South Africa), from which the most successful European teams go forward to compete in the European Rugby Champions Cup, the pan-European championship which replaced the Heineken Cup after the 2013–14 season.
The first ever final took place in 1892, between two Paris-based sides, Stade Français and Racing Club de France, which were the only teams playing the competition that year, with the latter becoming the inaugural champions. Since then, the competition has been held on an annual basis, except from 1915 to 1919—because of World War I—and from 1940 to 1942—because of World War II. Each year, the winning team is presented with the Bouclier de Brennus, a famous trophy awarded from 1892. Toulouse is the most successful club in the competition with 22 titles.
History
Early years
Rugby union introduction
Football was introduced in France by British traders and workers around the 1870s. The first known club to have practiced a form of football was the Havre Athletic Club in 1872, playing an hybrid code called the "combination".
The first true club to have played rugby union was the English Taylors RFC in 1877, followed by the Paris Football Club in 1878.
In the idea to copy the British model of public school, a lot of students' clubs appeared as well to practice athleticism and rugby, like the Racing Club de France (creation of Lycée Condorcet students in 1882), the Stade Français (creation of Lycée Saint-Louis students in 1883) and the Olympique (creation of Lycée Michelet (Vanves) students in 1887).
At the same time, rugby was also introduced via the port of Bordeaux to south-western France, and quickly merged with popular local traditions of ball games.
First title
Arbitrated by Pierre de Coubertin, the first title of France champion was played on one match, between the Racing and the Stade Français, on 20 March 1892. The Racing Club de France won the match 4–3. This embryonic league was played between only Parisian teams, and no more than six of them, until 1898. The Stade Français won 5 titles, and lost one final to the Olympique in this early stage of the league.
Bordeaux domination
The 1898–99 season saw a change in the format of the championship. The champion of Paris now met in a final for the national title the champion of the "province" (the rest of France). That changed again in 1904 with the creation of 16 regional leagues, the champions of which were qualified for a round of 16.
The championship, now truly on a national scale, saw the emergence of the first true dynasty of French rugby, with the domination of the Stade Bordelais, who played 12 of the 13 finals between 1899 and 1911, winning 7 of them. The reign was stopped by three consecutive elimination in semi-finals, and other south-western cities' clubs, like Perpignan, Bayonne and Toulouse, took charge of the sport.
After the WWI
Toulouse first dynasty
Due to WWI, operations were suspended for a number of years. In its place, a competition known as the Coupe de l'Espérance was held, which involved mostly young boys who had not been drafted. The competition was held four times, but is not normally considered a full championship. The normal competition returned for the 1920 season, and Stadoceste Tarbais became the first post-war champions, defeating the Racing Club de France in the final.
During the 1920s Stade Toulousain initiated its now famous rugby history, winning five Championships during the decade (Stade's very first feat took place in 1912 when they were crowned champions without losing a single game throughout the season: the team was nicknamed "la Vierge Rouge" — the Red Virgin, a reference to the club shirt color). USA Perpignan also won two championships (their 1925 final victory was actually a second match, as a previous final had ended in a nil-all draw).
Crisis
The 1930 Championship final, won by Agen over US Quillan, was the first to go into extra time.
The 1930s were dominated by the Biarritz Olympique (four finals and two championship titles) and the Lyon Olympique Université (three finals and two titles).
However, those dominations were sour, because of extra-sportive turmoil who shake french rugby union in this decade.
Brawl on the pitch and in the stand, and disguise professionalism (nickname "brown amateurism") had become quite common.
The most stunning example of brown amateurism was the US Quillan, a club of a 3000 inhabitants village who manage to go to three final and win one of them because Jean Bourrel, the owner of the village hat factory, wanted to use the club as advertising billboard for its product, and offer paid position in his factory to rugby players.
On the 24 of January 1931, 14 rugby union club, amongst them 7 former french champion, secede from the French Rugby Federation to protest against the abuses who tarnished rugby union image in the country. Despite a reintegration of those club in 1932, this event had deep consequences.
The four British team decided after this incident to ban France from the Five Nations. Coupled to the effect of the economical crisis, the number of club affiliated to the FFR dropped, from 784 in 1930 to 558 in 1939. This crisis also quickstarted rugby league in France, who go from no club existing in the country in 1934 to 225 in 1939, among them 14 fully professional.
After WWII
WWII
As during the First World War, the championship was suspended. Rugby union was one of the least affected sports by the German occupation, as it conformed to the amateur vision of sport cultivated by fascist ideology, and its location mainly in the unoccupied south meant that it was far removed from overly severe repression.
The Vichy regime tried to turn rugby union into a kind of national amateur sport for all, by banning all professional sports in 1941, which dealt a terrible blow to football association and rugby league.
In 1942, the rugby union league was reinstated, with Jean Dauger's Bayonne, Puig-Aubert's USA Perpignan and Albert Ferrasse and Guy Basquet's Agen among the big team.
Lourdes dynasty
Rugby union experienced a wave of growth after the war, thanks to the civilian population's desire to forget the horrors of war, France's reintegration into the prestigious Five Nations Tournament and the return of clubs that had opted for rugby league before the war to the FFR fold, such as Béziers. The retention of a large number of teams in the championship (between 40 and 80 until 1991) also helped local identification with rugby. The 40s saw the appearance of the Tarn department on the French rugby map, with Castres double and US Carmaux victory, but above all the emergence of a new dynasty.
With a core group of 8 international players - Antoine Labazuy, Jean and Maurice Prat, Thomas Mantérola, Louis Guinle and Roger Martine - FC Lourdes contested 10 finals between 1945 and 1960, winning 7 titles.
The 60's were highly contested, with 8 different winner, including three SU Agen titles.
Lourdes were also the champions of the 1968 season, but due to the May 1968 events, the final was played three weeks behind normal schedule. At the end of regulation time the score was tied at 6–6, and then 9–9 after extra time. Lourdes were declared champions because they had scored two tries to Toulon's none and also because there was no time to schedule a third final as the France national team were about to leave on a tour to New Zealand and South Africa.
Béziers dynasty
Although Béziers won their first Championship in the 1961 season, it would be the 1970s which would see a golden era for the club, under the command of the coach Raoul Barrière, as they would win ten Championships between 1971 and 1984, as well as being runners-up in 1976. The club also established a lot of record : a 100–0 win against Montchanin in September 1975, 11 years and 9 months of invicibility at home, and five entire season (1961, 1971, 1972, 1975, 1978) without a single defeat.
In the mid-1970s, after being held in Toulouse, Lyon and Bordeaux, the final was fixed on a permanent basis to the newly reconstructed Parc des Princes in Paris.
Teachers against Teacher
Former number eight of the club in the 60's, and teacher in highschool and university, Daniel Herrero was named as headcoach of RC Toulon in 1983. He transformed the RCT, go 7 years invincible at home and to three finals, winning in 1987. Its main opponent was the resurgence of the Stade Toulousain, with a generation nicknamed "the gymnastic professor team", because of the job of 8 of them. Toulouse won in 1989 the tenth title of his history.
The first match of the 1990s went into extra time, as the Racing Club de France defeated Agen, winning their first Championship since 1959. Bègles, Toulon, Castres and Toulouse would win the following finals.
The decade saw the league going more and more toward professionalism, with a reduction of the number of team authorized to play in the elite from 40 in 1995 to 16 in 2001.
Professionalism Era
15 years between three teams...
The 15 first years of the newly professional were dominated by three teams. Including their 1994 & 1995 victory, Toulouse won four championships in succession, and three others in 1999, 2001 and 2008.
Biarritz won in 2002 its first title since 1939, then two others in 2005 and 2006, with a core of players like Marc and Thomas Lièvremont, Joe Roff and Dimitri Yachvili.
But the team who benefits the most of professionalism was the Stade Français. After the success at the beginning of the sport, this club had been stuck for a long period in the inferiors division of french rugby. Bought by Max Guazzini, the owner of the successful radio station NRJ, the club came back from nowhere with a core of young and exciting players coached by Bernard Laporte to claim five title between 1998 and 2007
Then 8 champions in 14 years
Encouraged by the Stade Français experience, other fortunate individuals invested in Top 14 : Mohed Altrad in Montpellier, Mourad Boudjellal in Toulon, assembled teams of star to compete for the title. Those rich newcomers, however, have not completely topple the traditional teams.
Since 2010, Toulouse, driven by his powerful academy, won 5 title, while Clermont and Castres, the two other team to have never been relegated in the professional era, both won two.
Rising popularity
Top 14 logo used through the 2011–12 season.
The competition saw an enormous rise in popularity in 2005–06, with attendance rising to an average of 9,600, up by 25% from 2004 to 2005, and numerous sellouts. On 15 October 2005, Stade Français drew a crowd of 79,502 at Stade de France for their home match against Toulouse; this broke the previous French attendance record for a regular-season league match in any sport (including football) by over 20,000. That record was broken on 4 March 2006, when Stade Français drew 79,604 to a rematch of the 2004–05 final against Biarritz at Stade de France. It was broken again on 14 October 2006 with 79,619 as the same two opponents met, and a fourth time on 27 January 2007, with 79,741 for another Stade Français-Toulouse match.[2]
During the regular season 2010–2011, the average attendance per match reached 14,184.[3]
In 2011, Canal+ indicated that evening matches were being watched by between 800,000 and 850,000 viewers while afternoon matches were watched by around 700,000 viewers.[4]
In recent years, numerous foreign players have joined Top 14 teams.
Changes afoot
In August 2016, LNR released a strategic plan outlining its vision for French rugby through the 2023 Rugby World Cup. The plan includes significant changes to the top levels of the league system, although the changes were more dramatic for Pro D2 than for the Top 14. Changes affecting the Top 14 are:[5]
Starting with the 2017–18 season, the only club to be automatically relegated from Top 14 will be the bottom club on the league table. That club will be replaced by the Pro D2 champion.
From 2017 to 2018, the second-from-bottom team on the Top 14 table will enter a playoff with the Pro D2 runner-up, with the winner taking up the final Top 14 place.
On 13 March 2017, the Top 14 was rocked by the announcement that Racing 92 and Stade Français planned to merge into a single club effective with the 2017–18 season.[6] Stade Français players soon voted almost unanimously to go on strike over the proposed merger,[7] and within days LNR held an emergency meeting to discuss the Paris clubs' plans.[8] The clubs announced on 19 March that the planned merger had collapsed.[9]
Controversy
The 1993 French Rugby Union Championship was won by Castres, who beat Grenoble 14–11 in the final, a match decided by an irregular try.[10] A try by Grenoble's Olivier Brouzet was ruled out[11] and the decisive try by Gary Whetton of Castres was awarded by the referee, Daniel Salles, when in fact Grenoble scrum-half Franck Hueber had touched the ball down first in his try zone. This error gave the title to Castres. Salles admitted his mistake 13 years later.[12]Jacques Fouroux, then coach of Grenoble, came into conflict with the French Rugby Federation after claiming the match had been fixed.[13]
Over recent years, the Top 14 has seen the economic strength of its clubs rise significantly. Aided by high attendance, large television rights contracts,[14] public subsidies and the rise of the euro exchange rate,[15] Top 14 clubs have seen their overall spending budget increase significantly. In 2011–2012, four clubs had a budget over 20 million euros: Toulouse (33), Clermont (24), Racing Métro [now Racing 92] (22), Stade Francais (21).[16]
The average salary of players in the Top 14 was estimated to have risen, in 2010, to $153,700 (compared to $123,000 in the English Premiership).[17] The wealth of the Top 14 clubs has led them to attract a large number of international players,[18] and to build teams with more strength in depth (in 2011, Top 14 clubs could have as many as 45 players, compared to 33 for Leicester Tigers, 2010 Premiership winner).[19]
Two recent changes in regulation threatened to limit this economic growth. First, the French government repealed the law known as DIC (Droit à l'Image Collectif) on 1 July 2010. This law had allowed all member clubs in French professional sports organisations to treat 30% of each player's salary as image rights. This portion of player salaries was thus exempt from France's high payroll and social insurance taxes.[20]
Second, to control the growth of club spending, the LNR introduced a salary cap in the Top 14 in the 2010–11 season. Under the provisions of the cap, team payrolls were limited to €8 million.[21] This is in addition to an existing requirement that wage bills be no more than 50% of a team's turnover.[22] However, the €8 million cap was 5% greater than the highest official wage bill in the 2009–10 Top 14, and was well above the English Premiership's then-current £4 million cap. For the 2011–2012 season, the LNR raised the salary cap to €8.7 million.[23] Since then, the cap has risen still further, to €10 million starting in 2013–14 and continuing through 2015–16. Additionally, the cap now excludes youth players whose salaries are no more than €50,000.[24]
At the same time as LNR announced the salary cap, it also announced new rules requiring a minimum percentage of French players on club rosters. Players qualifying under these rules, referred to in French as JIFF (joueurs issus des filières de formation, loosely translated as "academy-trained players"), must have been registered with the FFR for at least five years before turning 23, or have spent three seasons in an FFR-approved training centre before turning 21.[25][21] Original plans were to require 50% JIFFs in 2010–11, but protests from leading clubs led to a reduction to 40% for that season. Initially, the 50% quota was to be met in 2011–12, and 60% in 2012–13, but a compromise with the clubs saw no change to the limit until 2013–14, at which time it increased to 55%. Additionally, effective in 2015–16, LNR was allowed to fine clubs that did not have a minimum of 12 JIFFs in their matchday squads.[25] These regulations, however, do not consider eligibility to play for the France national team. For example, although the Armitage brothers (Delon, Steffon and Guy) all represented England internationally, they qualified as JIFF because of their tenure in Nice's youth setup. On the other hand, recent France international Jérôme Thion, despite being a native and lifelong resident of France, did not qualify because he switched from basketball to rugby too late in his youth.[26]
While the most visible critics of the change in policy were wealthy club owners such as Mourad Boudjellal of Toulon and Max Guazzini of Stade Français, concern had been growing in French rugby circles that some smaller clubs might fold completely. Bourgoin only avoided a bankruptcy filing in 2009 by players agreeing to large wage cuts, and Brive, whose 2009–10 wage bill was €7.2 million, announced that they would cut their budget by 40% for the 2010–11 season.[20] Following the 2009–10 season, Bourgoin were denied a professional licence by LNR due to their ongoing financial issues, but the French Rugby Federation (FFR) reversed this decision on Bourgoin's appeal.[27]Montauban were relegated at the end of the same season after filing for bankruptcy.[28]
By the 2012–13 season, the internationalization of the Top 14 had reached such a state that Irish rugby journalist Ian Moriarty, who has had considerable experience covering the French game, asked the rhetorical question, "Has there ever been such a large disconnect between France's club teams and the international side they are supposed to serve?" He cited the following statistics from that season to make his point:[29]
Clermont and Toulon, who were set to play in the Heineken Cup final within days of Moriarty's piece, fielded a total of eight France-qualified starters out of a possible 30 in their Heineken Cup semifinal matches. Of these eight players, only four were regulars in the France national team.
During the 2012–13 Top 14, none of the top three points scorers were French, and only three of the top 10 try scorers were French.
Of the players who made the most appearances in their respective positions during that season, only three (out of 15) were French.
National team coach Philippe Saint-André suggested that several "foreign" players—meaning players who were born and largely developed outside the country—could make their debuts for France during the team's 2013 summer tour. Moriarty specifically named five such players as potential Test newcomers.
While the JIFF policy worked on one level—the number of foreign players recruited into the Top 14 went from 61 for 2011–12 to 34 for 2014–15—clubs quickly found a way around the rules. Many clubs dispatched scouts to identify top teenage prospects in other countries, and then enrolled them in their academies to start the JIFF qualification process. For example, the 59 players in the 2015–16 Clermont youth squad included 17 from nine countries outside of France.[25] A more fundamental problem was identified in 2015 by Laurent Labit, at the time backs coach of the club now known as Racing 92. In an interview with British rugby journalist Gavin Mortimer, Labit pointed out that France has no organized team sport in its educational system at the primary level—children must join an outside club in order to play sports. Only at age 15 do youths have the opportunity to attend special sporting schools, but places in such institutions are limited. In turn, this means that most young French players are technically well behind their counterparts in many other countries, most notably Commonwealth members and Ireland.[30]
The Top 14 is contested by fourteen professional rugby union clubs throughout France. The domestic season runs from August through to June. Every club contests 26 games during the regular season – over 26 rounds of competition. For many years, the season was split into two-halves for scheduling purposes, with both halves scheduled in the same order, with the team at home in the first half of the season on the road in the second. However, this strict order has since been abandoned, although the season is still loosely divided into halves. Throughout the August–June competition there are breaks during the season, as there are also European club fixtures (from 2014 to 2015, Champions Cup and Challenge Cup) that are played during the rugby season, as well as the Six Nations Championship, in which many top French players are involved, as well as a few players from the other European powers. The schedule may be adjusted somewhat in World Cup years; this was especially true in the 2007–08 season, which ran up against the 2007 Rugby World Cup in France. That season, the Top 14 played on all of the Six Nations weekends and on some of the Heineken Cup weekends.
The Top 14 is organized by the Ligue Nationale de Rugby (LNR), which runs the professional rugby leagues within France (Top 14 and Rugby Pro D2). There is a promotion and relegation system between the Top 14 and Pro D2. Starting with the 2017–18 season, only the lowest-placed club in the table after the regular season is automatically relegated to Pro D2. The playoff champion of Pro D2 is automatically promoted, while the next-to-last Top 14 club and the playoff runner-up of Pro D2 play each other to determine which club will be in Top 14, and which will be in Pro D2 the following season. Starting with the 2009–10 season, the Top 14 knock-out stages consist of three rounds. The teams finishing third through to sixth in the table play quarter-finals, hosted by the No. 3 and No. 4 teams. The winners then face the top two seeds in the semi-finals, whose winners then meet in the final at the Stade de France (although the 2016 final was instead held at the Camp Nou in Barcelona, Spain due to a scheduling conflict with France's hosting of UEFA Euro 2016). In previous seasons, only the top four teams qualified for semi-finals. Unlike many other major rugby competitions (such as the Gallagher Premiership, Mitre 10 Cup, Currie Cup, and from 2009 to 2010 the Celtic League/Pro12), the Top 14 has traditionally held its semi-finals at neutral sites.
Regardless of the playoff format, the top six teams had qualified for the following season's Heineken Cup in the final years of that competition, and since 2013–14 a minimum of six teams qualify for the European Rugby Champions Cup. Before the 2009–10 season, the seventh-place team also qualified if a French club advanced farther in that season's Heineken Cup than any team from England or Italy. While the European qualification system was changed for 2009–10, the normal contingent of six Top 14 teams in the Heineken Cup did not change. The default number of French teams in the Champions Cup has remained at six, but the method for a seventh French team to qualify has changed from performance in the previous European season to a post-season playoff. For the inaugural Champions Cup in 2014–15, this playoff involved the seventh-place teams from both England and the Top 14; in future years, the same two sides will be joined by one Pro12 side.
Previously in the first phase of the then-Top 16, the teams were divided into two pools of eight. This was followed by a second phase, in which the eight highest-ranked teams played for semi-final spots and the bottom eight teams battled against relegation. In 2004–05, the top division consisted of a single pool of 16 teams, with the top four teams advancing to a knockout playoff at the end of the season to determine the champion. From 2005 to 2006 through 2008–09, the top division was run with a single pool of 14 teams, again with a season-ending four-team playoff. The single pool was retained for 2009–10, but the playoffs were expanded to six teams.
The LNR uses a slightly different bonus points system from that used in most other major domestic competitions. Instead of a bonus point being awarded for scoring 4 tries in a match, regardless of the match result, a bonus point is awarded to a winning team that scores the equivalent of 3 tries more than its opponent (15 points). This system makes two scenarios that can be seen in the standard system impossible:
A losing team earning two bonus points. (The "offensive" bonus point, linked to the number of tries scored, can only be earned by the winning team in France.)
Either team earning a bonus point in a drawn match. (See above for the "offensive" bonus point. The "defensive" bonus point can only be earned by a losing team.)
For 2014–15, LNR further tweaked its bonus point system. The margin of defeat that allows the losing team to earn a bonus point was reduced from 7 points to 5.
European competition
The Top 14 serves as the qualification route for French clubs in European club competition. Starting with the 2014–15 season, Top 14 teams compete in the new European club rugby competitions—the European Rugby Champions Cup and European Rugby Challenge Cup. The Champions Cup and Challenge Cup replaced the previous European competitions, the Heineken Cup and Amlin Challenge Cup.[31]
Under the new structure, the top six teams on the Top 14 table qualify directly for the following season's Champions Cup. The seventh-placed team advances to a play-off for another Champions Cup place. In 2013–14, the play-off involved said Top 14 club and the seventh-placed club in the English Premiership. Initially, plans were for the play-off in subsequent years to also include two sides from Pro12 in the Celtic nations and Italy.[31] Due to fixture clashes with the Top 14 season, the play-off that followed the 2014–15 season involved only one Pro12 side.[32] Because the start of the 2015–16 European season ran up against the 2015 Rugby World Cup, the play-off was completely scrapped for that season, with the final Champions Cup place for 2016–17 instead awarded to the winner of the 2016 Challenge Cup.
In the Heineken Cup era, a minimum of six French clubs qualified for the Heineken Cup, with the possibility of a seventh depending on the performance of French clubs in the previous season's Heineken Cup and Challenge Cup.
All Top 14 clubs that do not qualify for the Champions Cup automatically qualify for the Challenge Cup.[31] This means that all Top 14 clubs will participate in European competition during a given season.
The French clubs have had success in the European competitions. The inaugural Heineken Cup, held in the 1995–96 season, was won by Toulouse, which would eventually claim four more championships (2003, 2005, 2010 and 2021). Brive won the second edition in 1997, then Toulon won three times in a row in 2013, 2014 and 2015. La Rochelle finally won the trophy on two occasions in 2022 and 2023, both finals against Leinster. In addition to the French success in the Heineken Cup and Champions Cup, the clubs in the lower European competitions have achieved similar results. The first four finals of the European Challenge Cup (1997–2000) were all-French affairs. Since then, six French clubs (Clermont in 2007, Biarritz in 2012, Montpellier in 2016 and 2021, Stade Français in 2017, Lyon in 2022, and Toulon in 2023) have won this competition. The now defunct European Shield, a repechage tournament for clubs knocked out in the first round of the Challenge Cup that was played for three seasons in 2003–05, was won by a French team each time.
^The 2016 final was moved to the Camp Nou in Barcelona as the final clashed with UEFA Euro 2016, and therefore no stadium with sufficient capacity was available to host the final in France.[59]
^The 2024 final will be moved to the Stade Vélodrome in Marseille as the final will clash with the preperations of the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris
^Stade Bordelais won the final 3–0, but the U.S.F.S.A. which organized the competition declared the final null and void and ordered a replay in Paris as Stade Bordelais had fielded three ineligible players; however, the replay was scratched and Stade Français were awarded the championship after the Bordeaux side refused to participate in the replay.
^Because of the May 1968 events, the finale was played three weeks later than scheduled. The score was 6–6 after regulation time expired, and 9–9 after extra-time expired, but it was impossible to schedule a replay due to France leaving to tour to New Zealand and South Africa, so FC Lourdes were declared champions because they had scored 2 tries to Toulon’s zero in the final.
2023–24 Top 14 season
France
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