JAMES HARRINGTON
FRENCH COLUMN
Top 14 side Biarritz look set to remain where they belong – in the heart of the Basque Country – following an apparent easing of relations between club and city council that had threatened to send the club running to the other end of the country.
The news, broken by Midi Olympique, came out of nowhere and cast new light on recent reports that the mayor of the Spanish city of San Sebastien had recently, and for a second time, rejected overtures from the club to move there.
Those reports had come as a surprise at the time, as it had seemed that Biarritz were dead set on moving a long way north rather than a relatively short distance south.
Was that, perhaps, a last public push to get a deal back in Biarritz over the line? We'll probably not know the whole story for some considerable time, if at all.
What is clear is that, until that surprise story broke a few weeks back, Lille, in the far north of the country, seemed the club's designated new location if no agreement could be reached with Biarritz over the redevelopment of Parc des Sports Aguilera.
The re-emergence of San Sebastien as a possible venue slapped into the ongoing story like a rubber mallet. Something had changed. The question was, what?
An early clue as to the sudden and apparent change of heart appeared quietly on the Challenge Cup fixture list of the EPCR website early this week.The Basque side's two home matches, against Newcastle and Toulon in early 2022, were suddenly listed as taking place at Parc des Sports Aguilera.
Previously, no venue had been formally confirmed – to the frustration, no doubt, of the visiting clubs and their fans … though, now, it is also interesting to note that Newcastle sought to gauge interest in a ‘European trip to the South of France for one of the Challenge Cup fixtures' via its website on Thursday, November 4.
Biarritz had earlier indicated it wanted to play those two games in Lille, as a water-test of the viability of a permanent move to the northern city, after a long-running row between club and city council over the redevelopment of the sprawling multi-sport centre that fans call home turned septic.
Early threats to move 1,000km from their historic home date back to March 2020, when rumours of a seemingly irreparable division between the club and the local authority over the financing of development plans at Parc des Sports Aguilera first came out.
The row rumbled on for a while in the background, then burst back on to the scene when the club won promotion back to the Top 14.
“The threat is quite real,” Mayor Maider Arosteguy told regional newspaper Sud Ouest at the time. “Leaving makes no sense in a sporting, legal, or moral capacity … on the other hand, economically, it certainly makes sense.
“Everything is relaunched… there is a real desire to move the Aguilera project forward”
“I feel [the club is] much less interested than in the past to make Aguilera great again, because I think they are fixed on Lille. But I'm optimistic by nature and I think this project still has a chance to happen.” Things got to the stage that the club played a pre-season friendly In Lille in August. Players and staff spent a week up north, glad-handing the city's great and good, and generally taking part in a charm offensive ahead of what at the time seemed increasingly close to a done deal.
Much has clearly gone on behind closed doors between then and now.
Today, Arosteguy is singing from a very different, even more optimistic, song sheet: “Everything is relaunched – we are currently reworking the original plans,” she said. “On both sides, there is a real desire to move the Aguilera project forward.”
Without going into any specifics on what the new plans might include, she added: “We are working on the sustainability of the club in its territory of origin.”
The club's owners have yet to issue a statement on what appears to be a demolition of the impasse, but it is being reported that several meetings between club bosses and the town hall officials have recently taken place on the Basque coast.
If all goes well, plans for the Aguilera complex could therefore be redrawn and made public sooner rather than later – and Biarritz the Basque club will remain in Biarritz, the Basque city.
But although peace appears to have broken out at one professional rugby club in the Basque Country, it definitely hasn't at the other.
Questions over the future of Bayonne coach Yannick Bru have spilled over into a row over the direction of the club under president Philippe Tayeb.
Last Sunday, Sud Ouest reported that Bru had decided to leave at the end of his contract in June, as ‘the former France coach no longer recognised himself in the project carried by Philippe Tayeb'.
That prompted one stakeholder, Elie Benmergui, to post a message on social media lamenting Bru's departure while lambasting the club's high-level management setup.
That provoked a strong reaction from the club, which threatened legal action for what it described as defamation.
But Benmergui has not backed down, returning to social media to hint at ‘a new project that is only sporting and purely Bayonne' that he said ‘will be presented in the very short term'.
Into this will walk Gregory Patat, who was unveiled by the club as head coach from next season this week. So, peace at Biarritz, disharmony at Bayonne. Interesting everyday times in Basque rugby.
