Stade Français: relations with players, management… The inside story of Laurent Labit’s dismissal

It is no longer an alert but a sauve-qui-peut. And everywhere, lost looks, unanswered questions. The voices no longer carry. The messages no longer get through. So we cut off heads. This Monday, it was that of the director of rugby, Laurent Labit, who rolled on the carpet. The one who was supposed to allow Stade Français to take a step forward when he arrived in October 2023, with his experience with the French XV, remains at the club, for the moment, but he is relieved of the sporting domain…

Fabien Galthié 's former assistant did not resist his team's eleventh defeat in seventeen Top 14 matches on Saturday in Toulon (24-6). A team now bottom of the league and more than ever threatened with relegation to Pro D 2. Meetings, initiated by the general management, took place on Sunday, with the staff and then with the players. The latter finally pointed out the lack of clarity from the management, stammering that they no longer knew whether to listen to Laurent Labit or Paul Gustard , the English defense specialist appointed manager when Karim Ghezal, another assistant to Galthié who arrived with Labit the day after the World Cup, was dismissed on September 30 .

"It was clear that Gustard would want to have his say," confided a person close to the club. "It was a real risk for Labit to bring him up, but he was the one who decided." The Englishman, in Paris since 2022, is recognized for having provided Stade Français with an iron defense last season, which allowed them to reach the semi-finals, eliminated by a hair's breadth by Bordeaux-Bègles (22-20). But his vision of the game did not match that of Laurent Labit.

This discordance, however, is not the only reason for the Parisian fiasco. Far from it. The recruitment did not live up to expectations. On the pitch, the players did not show much, confusing, for some of them, essential aggressiveness with bad gestures. The defeats followed one after the other and the crisis set in. On Sunday, Hans-Peter Wild, the owner and Thomas Lombard, the general manager, who did not wish to respond to our requests, heard everyone. They made their decision on Monday. A meeting with the supporters, who are increasingly vocal in their discontent on social networks, has also been set for March 5.

It is a question of trying to avoid the shipwreck and the levers to do so are not numerous. Stade Français did not expect to play for its survival in Top 14 over the last 9 matches. It is not shaped for that. Its next two matches, the receptions at the Stade Jean-Bouin of La Rochelle this Saturday then of Bayonne on March 22 will at least say if it has the marrow to hope to get out of this crisis.