The sanction fell in the case of the transfer of Melvyn Jaminet. The French rugby disciplinary council has decided to sanction Stade Toulouse, reigning French champion, with a withdrawal of two firm points in the Top 14 ranking for the current season. The club also receives a suspended penalty of two points and a fine of 45,000 euros, including 15,000 suspended.
The Haute-Garonne club was until now first in the Top 14, after eleven days, with two points ahead of its runner-up, Pau. Stade Toulouse will have seven days from receipt of the reasoned decision to appeal to the appeal committee of the French Rugby Federation (FFR). This appeal is not suspensive.
The Rouge et Noir were found guilty of “Incorrect and/or fraudulent accounting and/or misappropriated financing” and “Non-compliance with the regulatory provisions and decisions of the CCCP (Professional Championships Control Commission)”.
A transfer settled by the player in person
“Stade Toulousain takes note of the decision rendered by the National Rugby League. The decisions taken come at the end of a procedure whose terms have profoundly affected its image and we deplore it, reacted the club. Attached to its values of transparency and responsibility, Stade Toulousain will analyze in the coming days, with its advice, the opportunity to appeal to have its rights respected. »
Stade Toulouse was heard on Monday December 8 by the French Rugby Disciplinary Council. The closed-door hearing lasted more than four hours at the headquarters of the National League. This independent body, placed under the responsibility of the French Federation, is made up of seven members appointed by the FFR and the National League.
It was contacted by the Rugby Regulatory Authority, the financial watchdog, to examine the conditions of the transfer of international full-back Melvyn Jaminet, who had to pay himself the 450,000 euros of his release clause in Perpignan to join Toulouse in June 2022 in order to avoid this amount being included in the salary cap allowed by the Top 14 regulations.
According to the newspaper L’Equipe, at the time of the transfer, Stade Toulouse signed a contract worth 500,000 euros with a company based in Polynesia, called Pacific Heart. The contract was not executed and it is not known what happened to the 500,000 euros.
By paying 1.3 million euros in “contribution” to the National League last March to close the salary cap manager’s proceedings, then by finding a month later a financial agreement with the player, who left for RC Toulon in the summer of 2023, Stade Toulouse, which had recognized through the voice of its president Didier Lacroix “a lack of vigilance”, thought it had definitively resolved this matter.
A case studied by the courts
The story has therefore continued and it is not over since the Toulouse public prosecutor’s office has also been carrying out a preliminary investigation for “breach of trust” since April, in particular to “verify a possible correlation between the financial events linked to the transfer of this player and the project set up with this company based in Polynesia”, according to the public prosecutor David Charmatz.
In December 2023, Toulouse had already been sanctioned with a suspended fine of 50,000 euros for “failure to comply with the general obligation of transparency and cooperation” in the context of the transfer of South African Cheslin Kolbe, who had joined RC Toulon in the summer of 2021. The club then underlined in a press release that it had “not broken any rules when the player left”, but it did not wish to appeal of this decision, “in the interest of appeasement. »
For the transfer of Melvyn Jaminet, the sanction could go as far as a ban from participating in the final phase, or even a demotion to the lower division.
