French Budgets

This weekend we were told that Toulouse have a budget of 30million Euros and Clermont Auvergen 24 million.

Does anyone actually know what this budget corresponds to?

Is it all club expenditure including salaries, utilities, expenses etc across the whole organisation
Is it Rugby expenditure, ie the above but just rugby related spending
Is it a salaries budget - and if so is it all salaries, all rugby related salaries (incl coaches), all player salaries.



It is easy to look at a figure of 30 million euros and compare it to the Premiership salaries cap - but is that a fair comparison?

The current french salary cap is 8 million yoyos or 50% of turnover, whichever is lower. This, I think is directly comparable to the PRL cap, but there may be some differences in allowances for academy players, image rights, etc.

I'm pretty sure that the high figures commonly quoted are total turnover, or perhaps rugby related turnover, which is released to the public domain through the more stringent financial governance of the clubs.

I had heard there was a player salary cap brought in but I didn't know to what level it is respected. If as DLO suggests the 8 million Euros is used then that is pretty close to double the AP budget of £4 and a bit million (at the time of signing contracts, maybe not now).

With the AP marquee signing rule and other alterations to the salary cap the AP teams will have access to better squads from next season. Will this make a difference?

Here's an old article which suggests that no french club was spending more than the cap at the time of the introduction i.e. it's pretty cosmetic.

http://www.espnscrum.com/francetop14/rugby/story/107348.html

Here's two articles on this. The limit is €8.3 million and can be increased soon by about €500,000 if I remember correctly. There's only about four clubs in France that would be able to pay more than this anyway.

The quota for French/French trained players will have more significant impact over the next few years I think. From January it will be 50% of squads so this may reduce the number of talented foreign players that can play in France no matter what the clubs budgets are. We may see a much stronger French national side soon if this has the desired impact.

http://www.lequipe.fr/Rugby/breves2009/20091216_133537_salaires-et-quotas-au-menu.html

http://www.lequipe.fr/Rugby/breves2010/20101109_220755_le-jiff-maintenu-a-40-en-2011.html

Claremont are controlled by French Tyre giants Michelin I believe.
I would imagine that they surely are wealthier than Toulouse?

Where do Toulouse get their wonger from?

Toulouse selling an amazing amnount of merchandise I believe.
No idea as to what income that generates.

They have a shop in the centre of Toulouse the size of Next or Gap