{"id":793792,"date":"2026-10-06T14:20:18","date_gmt":"2026-10-06T14:20:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/793792\/"},"modified":"2026-10-06T14:20:18","modified_gmt":"2026-10-06T14:20:18","slug":"toulon-statement-head-coach-pierre-mignoni-quits-with-immediate-effect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/793792\/","title":{"rendered":"Toulon statement: Head coach Pierre Mignoni quits with immediate effect"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>  Published: 6 hours ago | 6 October 2026 04:12 EDT  <br \/> Updated: 5 hours ago | 6 October 2026 04:24 EDT  <\/p>\n<p>mens<\/p>\n<p>top-14<\/p>\n<p>    Toulon&#8217;s French head coach Pierre Mignoni looks on ahead of the French Top14 rugby union match between Stade Rochelais (La Rochelle) and Rugby Club Toulonnais (Toulon) at The Marcel-Deflandre Stadium in La Rochelle, western France on January 4, 2026. (Photo by XAVIER LEOTY \/ AFP) <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"expand\" src=\"https:\/\/eu-cdn.rugbypass.com\/images\/common-svg\/select-arrow.svg\" height=\"6\" width=\"11\"\/>      <a href=\"https:\/\/google.com\/preferences\/source?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rugbypass.com%2F\" onclick=\"GATracking.sendDataLayerEvent(&#039;preferredsourcegoogle&#039;);\" aria-label=\"Google Prefered Source\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/1791296417_135_google_preferred_source_badge_light.png\" alt=\"Google Prefered Source\" width=\"141\" height=\"44\" class=\"google-source\"\/> <\/a>     <\/p>\n<p>Pierre Mignoni has stepped down from his role as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/teams\/toulon\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Toulon<\/a> head coach with immediate effect following a poor start to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/top-14\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Top 14<\/a> season which sees the side languishing in 13th place. <\/p>\n<p>The three-time European champions have only won one of their opening five matches of the campaign, against newcomers and bottom-place Vannes, and suffered a 28-0 defeat to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/teams\/montpellier\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Montpellier<\/a> on Sunday. <\/p>\n<p>Franck Az\u00e9ma, who arrived at the Stade Mayol over the summer as an assistant coach, will take over as head coach, assuming the role he held between 2021 and 2023. <\/p>\n<p>Though their results have been damning so far this season, Toulon\u2019s opening two defeats were by a solitary point, and their third loss was by only two points. <\/p>\n<p>While they sit in 13th place, they are only two points adrift of eighth-place ASM Clermont-Auvergne, but a decision has been made to ensure a gap does not widen.<\/p>\n<p>      <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/213.png.webp\"\/> <\/p>\n<p> Toulon <\/p>\n<p>    <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/211.png.webp\"\/> <\/p>\n<p> Racing 92 <\/p>\n<p>    <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/live\/racing-92-vs-toulon\/?g=952511\/\" class=\"link-box\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">   <\/p>\n<p>A Toulon statement reads: \u201cPierre Mignoni informed the management of Toulon of his decision to end his mission as Director of Rugby, which the club accepted.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis decision comes in the context of insufficient sporting results since the start of the season. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cFaced with this situation, Pierre Mignoni chose to fully assume his responsibilities. After exhausting all available resources, he determined that a change was now necessary to revitalize the professional team. With this decision, he hopes to enable the squad to quickly return to winning ways.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFranck Az\u00e9ma takes over responsibility for the professional group from today and will assume the sporting direction of the team until further notice.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cToulon would like to thank Pierre Mignoni for his commitment and for all the work he has done since returning to the club in 2022. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn particular, he contributed to the reconstruction and structuring of the sporting project, around the professional sector and the Toulon training program, during these last seasons.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Published: 6 hours ago | 6 October 2026 04:12 EDT Updated: 5 hours ago | 6 October 2026&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":793793,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-793792","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/793792","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=793792"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/793792\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/793793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=793792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=793792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=793792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}