Leinster huffed and puffed, but couldn’t blow Toulon down last weekend Picture: Inpho
French club rugby is squashing all comers with its endless supply of money, and there appears to be little anyone can do about it for now
On October 15, 2005, Max Guazzini saw the realisation of a dream that many had deemed to be impossible. An eccentric entrepreneur who’d struck it rich in radio, he’d taken over a lower-league Parisian side by the name of Stade Francais 13 years earlier, with the promise of returning top-level rugby to the French capital. This was the high point of him keeping his word as he brought a match against Toulouse to the Stade de France, shifted 79,502 tickets, and smashed the national attendance record for a regular-season match in any sport. “You had to be a little crazy, but if we don’t take risks in life. . .” he recalled. “Everything is always possible. I had tears in my eyes that day.”
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