Almost 30 years after its transition to professionalism, rugby is fighting against its “footballization”

It’s a time that those under 20 cannot experience. “We did our shopping with the players. We shared the same bars, the same glasses”described with tremolos in the voice of Franck Lemann, president of the French Federation of Rugby Supporters and pillar of the association of unconditional fans of the Stade Français, the Virage des Dieux. “How often did a player pay for his round?” We can almost hear the late evening song echoing “he is one of our nôôôôtres” in a crowded bar. Bygone era. “Today, most players are just passing through.” The shared third half is rare, food supplement pills have replaced the beer-cassoulet diet and the players are more V-shaped than XXL. Some consequences of the professionalization of rugby, recorded in 1995, the effects of which we measure a little more each year.

The transition to pro did not happen with the wave of a magic wand. You just have to see how the first contracts were presented to the players. “I was shown a paper, and I signed at the bottom. Without negotiating”remembers Franck Belot, former international, a decade at Stade Toulouse. “We spoke with President Moga, we shook hands, and afterwards, they made me sign the contract”recalls Marc de Rougemont about his transfer from Toulon to Bordeaux-Bègles. “Before [la professionnalisation]when I played at Pamiers, we were given an envelope with cash, the amount of which we should definitely not disclose, because each player was not paid the same, far from it”nuance Laurent Bénézech, 15 capes in blue in the mid-1990s. Although modest – in heroic times, first division players were still paid the minimum wage – the remuneration led to an increase in the number of training sessions. “From three times a week, we went to twice a day”slips Marc de Rougemont, who for a time managed a hotel-restaurant in parallel with his activity.

Not quite the same sport anymore

This generation of rugby players with one foot in working life or in higher education is on the verge of disappearing. If it was possible to play matches with 10 or 20 minutes of effective playing time – the count of the time the ball is in motion on the pitch – while not being a full-time player, it has become chimerical today. ‘today. This indicator of match intensity has more than doubled in thirty years. “I already had a match once with 40 minutes of effective playing time”, remembers Franck Belot. A European Cup semi-final with Toulouse against Munster in 2000. “It was colossal. I did that once. Today’s players do it every week.” Likewise, the former second row remembers that, in his time, when a team fielded “Seven or eight guys responsible for tackling, it was a defensive team. Today, each player must have made his five tackles while advancing during the match, otherwise he is not called up the following week. “

“The athletic qualities of the players have increased tenfold, but the field is still the same size.”

Franck Belot, former international and Stade Toulouse player

at franceinfo

These demands have left a whole section of players behind, the grunts who previously played in the clubs’ B team, formations sacrificed to accommodate ever more hopefuls. “We are caught in a spiral”deplores player agent Jérôme Lollo, in the business since 1999. He describes the players who are approached earlier and earlier, before their growth is finished, those who see themselves more beautiful than they are and dream of Top 14 when they barely have the level to evolve two levels below. “The players ask me ‘how much’ before asking me ‘how’… Three years ago, I signed an 18-year-old player that all the Top 14 clubs were chasing, he arrived in a big club. For them, it wasn’t a big risk, at 40,000 euros per year, if it explodes, it’s all good.” Nothing went as planned. According to Jérôme Lollo, the player thought he arrived a little too quickly, put aside his healthy lifestyle and humility in the locker room and ended up being shown the door. “Today, I don’t even know what’s become of him.” One case among many others.

We attribute to Serge Blanco, tutelary figure of French rugby, the maxim “the spirit of the game does not change, it is the world around it that evolves”. And in fact, the failings of society have opened wide the doors to the oval ball, notes Marc de Rougemont, head of the RC Toulon rugby school: “We have attracted new audiences, who don’t realize it. As soon as their kid shows some qualities, they want to make him a professional. I don’t think I’ve yet seen agents around the handrail to do their shopping among the teenagers, but it’s going to happen eventually, that’s for sure.”

Even in Dijon, a land where the dominant ball has a rounder shape, parents have their heads spinning. “We immediately express reservations to parents who talk to us about thisinsists Camille Bardiau, director of the Stade Dijonnais rugby school. We don’t talk about competition before the age of 14 or 16, and above all, we strongly insist on the fact that the basis of our sport is humility.” A disappearing value. Franck Belot realized this when he enrolled his son in rugby school. “The parents’ WhatsApp group is hell. We’re aping football more and more. The only difference is that we’re 20 or 30 years behind.”

Football as a scarecrow

Footballization, the (big) word is out. “Everyone thinks we’re getting closer, but we’re not there yet”, Franck Lemann wants to believe. Still. Workshops took place under the aegis of the National Rugby League to prevent the oval ball from falling into the supposed failings of the round ball. Starting with the behavior of the public. “Every year we hold an information session with the representatives of the supporters’ associations, to teach them how to educate the new public.” The previous World Cup in France, in 2007, started by an inappropriate reading of Guy Môquet’s letter by Clément Poitrenaud and ended in a mess with a botched final against Argentina, led to a doubling of the Virage des gods. Suffice to say that an epic from Antoine Dupont and others could fill the stands of the Top 14 stadiums a little more.

And allow us to save what can be saved. “The values ​​of the oval are found much more among the supporters than among the players”sighs Laurent Bénézech, who was concerned about it ten years ago in an essay, Rugby, where are your values?which had caused a lot of ink to flow. “At the highest level, we only cultivate them in a marketing spirithe continues, quite disillusioned. The mistake was to let ourselves be carried away by the wave, without learning from the mistakes of other sports. It was an advantage to reach professionalism in the last few, but we have the feeling that everything was done to make up for lost time. We kind of made absolute money.” Quite the opposite of what Bernard Lapasset, president of the French Federation at the time of his transition to pro, assured: “It is the game that must guide rugby, not the power of money.”

It is generally agreed that the turning point occurred in the first decade of the 21st century, when wealthy businessmen invested massively in rugby, poaching stars from the southern hemisphere, generally after each World Cup. What inspired this bit of humor in Mourad Boudjellal, former boss of RC Toulon: “We are going to install two security guards at the entrance to the locker rooms, because Once the players have put down their watches and their belongings, there are 35 kilos of gold in the cloakrooms.” Did you say “bling bling”?

There are certainly safeguards, including the famous salary cap, which caps players’ salaries, and bans transfers exceeding a few hundred thousand euros. Antoine Dupont, the star of the French XV, earns just under 40,000 euros per month, or 150 times less than Kylian Mbappé, star of the Blues football team. A sign that the money flowing into rugby is not yet trickling down to the main players.