Caudecoste, a village rugby club in Lot-et-Garonne, has written to Florian Grill, president of the Fédération française de rugby (FFR), to complain about the pool assigned to its two senior teams for the 2026-2027 season, according to club co-president Daniel Planès.
Planès said he sent the letter as soon as he learned that Caudecoste, which competes in Régionale 3, had been placed in a pool dominated by clubs from the Basque Country and Béarn, alongside RC du Mézinais and RC Virazeil. He said he received an acknowledgement of receipt but no written response from the federation.
A village club between two bigger neighbours
Caudecoste is a bastide town in the Brulhois area, sandwiched between the Fédérale 1 club of Layrac and the Nationale 2 club of Valence-d'Agen. Over the close season, the town council had the stadium pitch relaunched with help from local firm ESBTP. Planès's club, the AOCB, has spent recent seasons proudly expanding its squad to the point of fielding a reserve team, a milestone now threatened by the new travel demands.
League official calls after letter to FFR
Planès said that although the federation itself did not reply directly, he quickly received a phone call from the competitions manager at the Ligue de Nouvelle-Aquitaine, who had been informed of the letter. According to Planès, the official admitted he was saddened by the club's situation but said the pool composition commission had no other choice than to balance the number of clubs fielding a reserve team across the league's two southernmost pools.
Planès said he told the official that no funding solution had been offered in return for the resulting rise in travel costs. He said the official's suggestion was to buy a bus and organise more lotto nights.
"A transport budget close to a Fédérale or Nationale club"
Véronique Lasgleyses, the club's treasurer and a former club president, quickly asked for a quote from the coach operator that also sponsors the AOCB. She said the operator told her Caudecoste would need almost the same transport budget as a club playing in Fédérale or Nationale.
Lasgleyses, who has opened negotiations with the league, said the first two away trips alone, to Cambo and Salies-de-Béarn, will cost more than 4,000 euros once mileage and the requirement for two drivers on the coach are factored in.
Some matches without an opponent for the reserves
Between those two long trips, Caudecoste will host the Béarn club Mourenx. For all three of those fixtures, the club's two teams, known locally by their sky-blue and wine-dregs colours, may not always face an opponent, since not every club in the pool fields a reserve side.
Planès said the club finished the previous season financially balanced but will now have to triple its transport budget under the new pool. He said Caudecoste relies on local partnerships, mainly with the town council and building and construction firms that are themselves going through an economic downturn, and that the club is asking the league for help.
Nearly 4,000 kilometres for the first team alone
The reserve team's fixture schedule has not yet been published. Planès said some Sundays could see the club sending two coaches in two different directions at once. For the first team alone, he calculated close to 4,000 kilometres of travel across the season.
Club figure Jérôme Caunes said Caudecoste would cope as best it could, both on the pitch and financially, because rugby is an institution in the town and the club would carry its colours and its values as amateur rugby players as far as it could.
The pools
The Régionale 3 first-team pool comprises Cambo, Mourenx, Puyoo-Salies-Sauveterre, Miramont-Sensacq, Cazaux, Narrosse, Mézin, Virazeil, Avant Garde de Thèze and Caudecoste.
The reserve-team pool comprises Caudecoste, Mézin, Cambo, Miramont-Sensacq, Narrosse, Avant Garde de Thèze, Idron-Lee, Asasp-Arros, Jurançon and Saint-Pierre-du-Mont.
