Financial incentive for picking French players

FROM September, Top 14 clubs that average a minimum 17 JIFF players in their matchday squads will be eligible for a share of a special fund.

Based on this season’s figures, six clubs would qualify for additional JIFF qualification money – Clermont (with a 19.46 JIFF player average per matchday 23), Racing 92 (19.44), Toulouse (19.39), Bordeaux (18.68), Lyon (18.5), and Pau (17.38).

Established Top 14 or ProD2 clubs that fail to hit the average 16 JIFF player minimum in 2022/23, meanwhile, will lose league points on a sliding scale, ranging from a four-point deduction for an average of between 15 and 16 – enough to see regular season table-toppers Castres slip to fourth at the end of the regular campaign – to a whopping 12 points for an average of less than 10 eligible players, the difference between Castres and ninth-placed Lyon.

Based on averages for the most recent season, no club would suffer a points penalty. Promoted pair Perpignan and Biarritz managed their adapted 14 JIFF minimum, while Toulon and Castres scraped in with the bare minimum of 16.

For 2022/23, promoted Bayonne will operate on the adapted minimum of 14 JIFF players, while Perpignan, in their second season, have to use an average of 15 JIFF players per match.

It’s similar in the ProD2. No club missed their required minimum, while half would have access to JIFF funding – Aurillac (18.07), Agen (18.03), Nevers (17.94), Colomiers (17.9), Grenoble (17.4), Rouen (17.3), Beziers (17.17), and Oyonnax (17.16).

Next season, the maximum number of non-JIFF players is limited to 13 per club, except newly promoted sides, which are allowed an additional two nonqualifying players.