Top 14: Difference between revisions
No edit summary |
|||
| Line 1,006: | Line 1,006: | ||
{{Top 14}} |
{{Top 14}} |
||
| ⚫ | |||
{{Rugby Union Club Competitions}} |
{{Rugby Union Club Competitions}} |
||
| ⚫ | |||
{{Europe in topic|Rugby union in}} |
|||
[[Category:French rugby union competitions]] |
[[Category:French rugby union competitions]] |
||
[[Category:National rugby union premier leagues]] |
|||
{{Link FA|fr}} |
{{Link FA|fr}} |
||
Revision as of 10:52, 25 February 2010
Current season or competition: 2009–10 Top 14 season | |
| File:Optimized image 27a49e7d.png | |
| Sport | Rugby union |
|---|---|
| Instituted | 1892 |
| Number of teams | 14 |
| Country |  France |
| Holders | Perpignan (2008-09) |
The Top 14 is a Rugby union club competition which is played in France. The Top 14 is at the top of the national league system operated by the French 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, though the competition was previously known as the Top 16.
The first ever final took place in 1892, between two Paris-based sides, Stade Français and Racing Club, with the latter becoming the inaugural champions. The competition has been held on an annual basis since, with the exception being between 1915 and 1919 because of World War I. The current champions are Perpignan.
History
Early years
The first competition was held in 1892, as a one-off championship game between the Racing Club de France and Stade Français. The Racing Club defeated Stade Français four points to three to win the first ever title, though the "stadistes" got their revenge the following year in a repeat of the final. The match official for that first final was Pierre de Coubertin. Stade Français would go onto win a number of titles thereafter. The 1897 and 1898 series were awarded on a points system after a round-robin. Although the competition was called the French championship, entry was confined to just Parisian clubs. The 1899 season was the first to include clubs from outside of Paris, and led to Stade Bordelais (from Bordeaux) winning the final that season, which was also played outside of Paris, in Le Bouscat (a suburb of the city of Bordeaux).
For the following decade the championship game would usually end up being contested by the Racing Club, Stade Français and Stade Bordelais, with Stade Bordelais actually winning five titles during this period. During this time the final was usually held in various stadia around Paris with the exception of 1903 and 1909 where it was held in Toulouse, as SOE Toulouse and Stade Toulousain were finalists respectively. The competition was then won by a number of different clubs before World War I, with teams like FC Lyon, Stade Toulousain, Aviron Bayonnais and USA Perpignan claiming their first titles.
Between the wars
Due to the war, operations were suspended for a number of years. In its place, a competition known as the Coupe de l'Espérance was held which consisted mostly of young boys who had not yet 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 in the final. During the 1920s Stade Toulousain would create its now famous rugby history, winning five championships during the decade. USA Perpignan would also win two championships (their 1925 final victory was actually a second match, as a previous final had ended in a nil-all draw).
During the 1930s the championship game was held only in Bordeaux and Toulouse. The 1930 championship game won by Agen over US Quillan, was the first final to go into extra-time. It would also see Toulon and Lyon OU win their first championship games. During the latter part of the decade, RC Narbonne, CS Vienne and Perpignan all won titles, and Biarritz Olympique were champions in both 1935 and 1939. During World War II no competition was played.
Postwar
After the war the championship final returned to Paris, and was played at Parc des Princes for the next four seasons. The competition during the 1940s was won by a number of different teams, though Castres won in 1949, and then again in 1950. FC Lourdes would become a dominant club during the 1950s, winning five championships, and another in 1960.
SU Agen would go onto win three titles during the 1960s as well. Lourdes were also the champions of the 1968 season, but due to the May 1968 events, the finale 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 it was impossible to reschedule a third final so late, as the French national team were to leave on a tour to New Zealand and South Africa.
Although Béziers won their first championship in the 1961 season, it would be the 1970s which would see a golden era for the club, as they would win ten championships between 1971 and 1984, as well as being runners-up in 1976. Also in the mid 1970s, after being held in Toulouse, Lyon and Bordeaux in recent years, the championship final was taken to Parc des Princes on a permanent basis. During the rest of the 1980s, Toulouse were the dominant team, winning the championship in 1985, 1986 and 1989. Toulon won in 1987 (and were runners-up in 1985 and 1989), and Agen won in 1988 (and were runners-up in 1984 and 1986).
Into the professional era
The first match of the 1990s went into extra time, as the Racing Club defeated Agen, winning their first championship since 1959. CA Bordeaux-Bègles Gironde, Toulon, Castres and Toulouse would win the following finals. The 1990s also saw the game of rugby union go professional following the 1995 Rugby World Cup in South Africa. This also led to the establishment of the European Heineken Cup. Including their 1994 victory, Toulouse won four championships in succession. For the 1998 season, the final was moved to the newly constructed Stade de France, the new national stadium. The final, played in front of 78,000, saw Stade Français win their first championship since 1908.
Rising popularity
The competition saw an enormous rise in popularity in 2005-06, with attendance up by 25% from 2004-05, 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.[1]
The future
Despite this recent rise in popularity, a financial shadow hangs over French rugby as of late 2009. The French government has announced it will suspend a law known as DIC (Droit à l'Image Collectif) effective 1 July 2010. This law, created in 2004, allows all member clubs in French professional sports organizations to treat 30% of each player's salary as image rights. This in turn gives the clubs a large tax break, allowing them to compete on a more equal financial footing with leagues in other European countries that provide similar tax breaks to their sports clubs.[2]
While the most visible critics of the change in policy have been wealthy club owners such as Mourad Boudjellal of Toulon and Max Guazzini of Stade Français, concern is growing in French rugby circles that some smaller clubs may fold completely. Bourgoin only avoided a bankruptcy filing in 2009 by players agreeing to large wage cuts, and Brive, whose 2009–10 wage bill is €7.2 million, have announced that they will cut their budget by 40% for the 2010–11 season.[2]
Another shadow hanging over the sport in France is fixture congestion. Rugby journalist Ian Moriarty strongly criticized the sheer number of fixtures that the top clubs must navigate, noting that by the end of December 2009, the top clubs in the league will have played 20 matches domestically and in the Heineken Cup in the 2009–10 season. This compares with 15 for English clubs, with two more in the Anglo-Welsh Cup, and 14 for Magners League clubs, with the Welsh clubs in that competition also having two Anglo-Welsh Cup fixtures. This congestion, including three league matches during the November Test window, frequently leads to player exhaustion and injuries. For example, going into the December rounds of the Heineken Cup in 2009, Perpignan had five injured front-row forwards; Toulouse coach Guy Novès was forced to rest key players in several matches due to sheer exhaustion; and Biarritz, hurt badly by an injury to star back-rower Imanol Harinordoquy during the November Tests, and Clermont, also with many international call-ups, went into temporary domestic freefall.[3]
The most obvious solution to this perceived problem would be a reduction in the number of clubs. The Guinness Premiership has 12 clubs, and the Magners League has 10 (its plan to add two Italian teams for 2010–11 has fallen through). The largest French clubs all support reducing the top tier to 12, but the current LNR president Pierre-Yves Revol has so far staunchly opposed any major changes in the competition; according to Moriarty, Revol "believes that the 118 year-old French championship takes precedence over everything else, including the national team."[3]
In another recent development, in December 2009 the LNR announced it would institute a salary cap in the Top 14 beginning with the 2010–11 season. Under the provisions of the cap, team payrolls will be limited to €8 million, and clubs will be required to hold 20% of their salary budget in reserve, up from the previous 10%.[4] This is in addition to an existing requirement that wage bills be no more than 50% of a team's turnover.[5] However, Moriarty called the salary cap "little more than a bit of sleight of hand by the LNR to appease a sporting public", noting that the €8 million cap is in fact 5% greater than the highest official wage bill in the 2009–10 Top 14, and translated to £7.1 million at the time the cap was announced, well above the Guinness Premiership's then-current £4 million cap. He also added that clubs would likely find ways around the cap, noting, "Last season, it's rumoured that one big, overseas name was paid less than 40% of his total income as a salary."[5]
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. Original plans were to require 50% French players in 2010–11, but protests from leading clubs led to a reduction to 40% for that season. The 50% quota must be met in 2011–12, and 60% in 2012–13. Qualifying players must have been registered with the French Rugby Federation (FFR) for at least five years before turning 21, or have spent three seasons in an FFR-approved training centre if they are currently under 21.[4]
Format and structure
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. The season is split into two halves for scheduling purposes; both halves are scheduled in the same order, with the team at home in the first half of the season on the road in the second. Throughout the August-June competition there are breaks during the season, as there are also European Rugby Cup (Heineken Cup and European Challenge Cup) fixtures 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 exists a promotion and relegation system between the Top 14 and Pro D2. The two lowest placed clubs on the ladder after the regular season are relegated to Pro D2, while two clubs come up from Pro D2, specifically the champion and the winner of a knock-out playoff between the next four teams on the ladder. Starting with the 2009–10 season, the Top 14 knock-out stages will consist of three rounds. The teams finishing third through sixth on the ladder will play quarter-finals, hosted by the #3 and #4 teams. The winners then face the top two seeds in the semi-finals, whose winners then meet in the final at Stade de France. In previous seasons, only the top four teams qualified for semi-finals. Unlike many other major rugby competitions (such as the Guinness Premiership, Air New Zealand Cup, Currie Cup, and from 2009–10 the Magners League), the Top 14 has traditionally held its semi-finals at neutral sites.
Regardless of the playoff format, the top six teams have qualified for the following season's Heineken Cup in recent years. 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.
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 2005-06 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 3 tries more than its opponent. This system makes two scenarios that can be seen in the standard system absolutely 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.)
This system also makes it very unlikely that both teams will earn bonus points in the same match. In the two-plus seasons since LNR implemented its current bonus points system, only two Top 14 matches have seen both teams earn bonus points.
European competition
The Top 14 also serves as the qualification route for French clubs into the two European Rugby competitions; the Heineken Cup and the European Challenge Cup. A minimum of six French clubs qualify for top level of competition, the Heineken Cup. The top six ranked French clubs (one through to six on the points ladder) at the end of the regular season qualify for the following season's Heineken Cup. In accordance with rules changes that take effect with the 2009–10 season, the winners of the Heineken and Challenge Cups each receive automatic Heineken Cup berths for the following season; unlike past years, these berths are not at the expense of a country's allocation. However, England and France are capped at seven Heineken Cup berths each. If either country produces both Cup winners in the same season, one of its league berths in the Heineken Cup will instead go to the club that is ranked highest in the European Rugby Club Rankings that is (1) not of that country and (2) not already qualified for the Heineken Cup.[6] This means that France will have seven berths if either of the following happens:
- A French club wins either of the two Cup competitions.
- English clubs win both Cup competitions, and the club that stands highest in the ERC Rankings among those that did not otherwise qualify for the Heineken Cup is French.
This also means that it is theoretically possible for the French champion to not qualify for the Heineken Cup; however, it would require all of the following to occur:
- The sixth-place team on the season ladder wins the playoffs.
- The aforementioned team does not win one of the European cup competitions.
- Both European cups are won by French teams.
All Top 14 clubs that do not qualify for the Heineken Cup automatically qualify for the Challenge Cup.[7] This means that all Top 14 clubs will participate in European competition during a given season.
The French clubs have had huge success in the European competitions. The inaugural Heineken Cup, the 1995-96 season was won by Toulouse, which would lead to two other championships as well (2002-03 and (2004-05). It would also not be until the fifth championship game until there was no French team in the final. In addition, there have also been two occasions where the final was an all French encounter (Toulouse v Perpignan in 2002-03 and Toulouse v Paris in 2004-05).
In addition to the French success in the Heineken Cup, the clubs in the lower European competitions have achieved similar results. The European Challenge Cup, first contested in 1997 was won by a French club four seasons in a row (1997-00), in addition all the championship games were actually against other French clubs. No French team has won the Cup since then, however, French clubs have had less success, as the revised Top 16/Top 14 format has required them to pay more attention to league games in order to avoid relegation. 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 from 2003-05, was won by a French team each time.
Current teams
2009–10 season
Template:Location map start Template:Location map marker Template:Location map marker Template:Location map marker Template:Location map marker Template:Location map marker Template:Location map marker Template:Location map marker Template:Location map marker Template:Location map marker Template:Location map marker Template:Location map marker Template:Location map marker Template:Location map marker Template:Location map marker
Results
The scores in green are links to the account of each final on the site of the professional league (LNR). In French.
Total wins
Notes
- ^ "Le Stade Français sort vainqueur du choc contre Toulouse" (in French). AFP via Le Monde. January 28, 2007.
{{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=(help) - ^ a b Moriarty, Ian (2009-11-11). "French rugby heading for crisis". Scrum.com. Retrieved 2009-11-12.
{{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=(help) - ^ a b Moriarty, Ian (2009-12-09). "Insane calendar impeding French clubs". Scrum.com. Retrieved 2009-12-09.
{{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=(help) - ^ a b "Top 14 set for salary cap". Scrum.com. 2009-12-17. Retrieved 2009-12-19.
{{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=(help) - ^ a b Moriarty, Ian (2009-12-18). "Salary cap just sleight of hand". Scrum.com. Retrieved 2009-12-19.
{{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=(help) - ^ "Format and qualification changes for Europe" (Press release). European Rugby Cup. 2009-06-15. Retrieved 2009-06-16.
- ^ "European Challenge Cup – Key Tournament Rules". ercrugby.com. Retrieved 2007-08-24.
- ^ One 2009–10 home match was held at Estadio Anoeta in Donostia-San Sebastián, Spain (within 50 km).
- ^ One 2009–10 home match has been held at the Anoeta, and a second match is scheduled there later in the season.
- ^ One 2009–10 home match was held at Stade des Alpes in Grenoble.
- ^ Five matches will be played at Stade de France in 2009–10.
- ^ One home match was held at Stade Vélodrome in Marseille in both the 2008–09 and 2009–10 seasons.
- ^ One or two matches per season are held at Stadium Municipal.
- ^ Only 2 clubs took part. Match account in French
- ^ The title was awarded after a round-robin with 5 clubs. Stade Français won with 10 points, Olympique de Paris was second with 8.
- ^ The title was awarded after a round-robin with 6 clubs. Stade Français won with 10 points, Racing was second with 6.
- ^ The first time provincial teams were invited.
- ^ In 1901, Stade Bordelais won the final 3-0. But the U.S.F.S.A. which organized the competition cancelled the result and ordered a replay in Paris, as Stade Bordelais had fielded three ineligible players. But the Bordeaux side refused the replay and Stade Français were declared the winners.
- ^ A first final, played on April 26, 1925 in Toulouse, had ended on a 0-0 a.e.t..
- ^ A first final played on May 15, 1949 at Stade des Ponts Jumeaux in Toulouse had ended on a 3-3 draw (a.e.t.).
- ^ Because of the May 1968 events, the finale was played three weeks behind the normal schedule. A the end of regulation the score was 6-6, and 9-9 after extra-time. FC Lourdes were declared champions because they had scored 2 tries to Toulon’s 0 and also because it was impossible to reschedule a third final so late, as France were to leave on a tour to New Zealand and South Africa.
- ^ Béziers won 3 goal-kicks to 1.
- ^ The highest scoring final ever.
- ^ "Top 14 Finale : Clermont-Auvergne - Toulouse" (in French). L'Équipe. 2008-06-24. Retrieved 2009-04-01.
{{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=(help) - ^ "Top 14 Finale : Perpignan - Clermont" (in French). L'Équipe. 2009-06-06. Retrieved 2009-06-06.
{{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=(help)