World Rugby now officially recommends a maximum of 30 matches per, per female player, per male player. What do Provale think? Intervalle? The LNR? A club president? A manager? And why bring out this recommendation at this point in the season, when a breakaway world league (R 360) is making waves?

France benefits from an agreement that inspired the World Rugby commission (the head of the FFR’s performance support department chaired that commission), whose board has signed off the following recommendations, for all member countries: 

  • No more than 30 matches in a single season or six consecutive weeks of matches.
  • A 5-week break during the off-season.
  • Minimum rest periods of at least a week if they are selected for international fixtures.
  • 12 consecutive weeks without contact during a season.

In France, on the club presidents’ side, there is no argument, as with Olivier Cloarec, president of RC Vannes, PRO D2:

“I have no firm view, I’m not a doctor and I can’t say whether 30 is the right number of matches. What is certain is that players’ health and physical integrity have to be the priority.”

Among the players’ representatives, it is the same, they back it, as Provale president Malik Hamadache explains:

”We’re not like other sports such as basketball or football where you can play match after match. In rugby, and it is comparable to boxing or American football, it is essential to take care of health. It’s a positive signal, thinking about our athletes’ health.”

A consensus on player health, that is undeniable. But there are questions, raised for instance by Philippe Saint-André, the Provence Rugby manager:

“I think they are thinking about player safety, but they are going to cause problems for a lot of nations such as Romania, Portugal and Algeria, many of whose players are in the Top 14, Pro D2 and Nationale: 12 matches with their national team and there are only 18 team sheets left for the club, those players will be paid less, or there will be fewer of them picked by their countries…”

On the agents’ side, nobody disputes the benefits of protecting players’ health. But there are questions about the timing of the release of World Rugby’s recommendations, as it also fights a battle against R 360, the emerging breakaway world league. Miguel Fernandez, president of Intervalle:

“I can’t help seeing it as partly a response to a certain competition that is about to see the light of day, and which, in this instance, is going to use players a lot less in terms of numbers of matches. Then again, if you limit the number of matches per player per season, someone is going to have to ‘explain that’ to certain club presidents, notably in France. For the southern hemisphere, it is far less of a problem: the unions cover part of the pay of the country’s best players, I’m talking about Australia, South Africa, New Zealand and Argentina. The best players have a union contract, a contract with the province and possibly a contract with a club. In France, that is absolutely not the case.”

Gone are the days when the likes of Christian Califano, Lionel Nallet and plenty of others played more than 45 matches a season, and so much the better for players’ health. The penultimate word to Philippe Saint-André, at the crossroads of everyone’s interests, who sums it up:

“The problem is that the club pays the player, and of course the player’s health and wellbeing are the most important thing. But you won’t be able to keep paying a player to appear on only 15 or 16 team sheets a season for the club…”

And the last word to the LNR and its president, Yann Roubert:

“The recommendations adopted at the end of September 2025 retain the two fundamental principles jointly defended by the LNR and the FFR since the discussions began in 2023 and again recently in those that preceded this update: the “guidelines” adopted by World Rugby are only applicable in countries where there is no domestic agreement. In countries where domestic agreements exist – which is the case in France with the CCRP and the FFR-LNR Convention – those agreements prevail, including in their future evolutions, over the “guidelines” published by World Rugby, and that applies to every provision.”

To be continued