The season opener of the Top 14 Stade Français - Bordeaux-Bègles, scheduled for Friday, has been postponed due to the coronavirus, the National Rugby League announced on Tuesday.
Stade Français were unable to match the required number of front row players.
The opening match of the Top 14 season, which saw Stade Français and Bordeaux-Bègles clash, scheduled for Friday, has been postponed.
Stade Français is "unable to align (...) the required number of frontline players" decimated by the coronavirus, announced the National Rugby League.
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The meeting could now take place on the weekend of September 26-27, if the UBB does not win its quarter-final of the European Challenge, or at a later date, according to a press release from the NRL, which specified that the disciplinary committee and regulations had been entered "in order to determine the responsibility of Stade Français in this situation for its management of the offseason".
"The club has been hit hard by the Covid-19"
According to the rules of the NRL, at least six frontline players must indeed be registered on the 23 of the scoresheet.
"It is a perfectly reasonable decision, given the state of health of many of our players. The club has been severely impacted by the Covid-19", confided Thomas Lombard, the general manager of the French stadium, on the club site.
About twenty cases had been detected within the Parisian workforce since the beginning of August, at the end of a preparation course in Nice.
And some players suffered from "lung damage from the virus", which had precipitated the end of training and the quarantine of part of the team.
The Top 14 season must therefore now open with Montpellier-Pau, Friday at 8:45 p.m.