Rugby Club Bassin d’Arcachon will not play the 2026-2027 season. On Wednesday the Association Côte Landes Rugby passed on the news from the Federation: the Gironde club, entered in Fédérale 3 and Excellence B, has been made dormant following the liquidation proceedings against it. The case was put to the Federation’s strategic board, which approved the decision. All of its teams’ fixtures are cancelled.

Three divisions lost in two seasons

The fall has been recent and rapid. The club played three consecutive seasons in Nationale 2, from 2022-2023 to 2024-2025, the third national tier. It dropped to Fédérale 1 in 2025-2026, then to Fédérale 3 for the campaign that was due to start this month. Eighteen months separate its last season at the third level of French rugby from its disappearance from the fixture list.

The club was weighed down by debts of around 700,000 euros and had been placed under observation.

A nine-team pool, and one fewer club left behind

The effect on Pool 10 of Fédérale 3 is automatic, and it works in favour of the nine remaining sides. Arcachon are now treated as a bye, which cuts the regular season to sixteen matches instead of eighteen.

Above all, the qualification bar does not move: teams must finish in the top eight of the pool to go into the future Promotion Nationale. With ten clubs, two would have missed out. With nine, only one will. One club is therefore saved by a bankruptcy that is not its own.

What the reform changes, and when

The reform of the federal leagues comes into force in the 2027-2028 season, not this year. It reduces the amateur pyramid from five levels to four: Nationale, Nationale 2, Nationale 3 and Promotion Nationale. The name “Fédérale” disappears.

Two changes shape the new structure. Nationale grows from fourteen to sixteen clubs. Nationale 2 doubles in size, to forty-eight teams split into four pools of twelve.

That is what gives the current season its stakes in every Fédérale pool: it serves as a ranking season for entry into the new pyramid. The Top 14 and Pro D2, run by the professional league rather than the Federation, are not affected by the reform.