{"id":98146,"date":"2025-08-28T07:12:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-28T07:12:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/98146\/"},"modified":"2025-08-28T07:12:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-28T07:12:10","slug":"eye-watering-toulouse-budget-dwarfs-european-champions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/98146\/","title":{"rendered":"Eye-watering Toulouse budget dwarfs European champions&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>French outlet\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbyrama.fr\/2025\/08\/26\/top-14-le-mastodonte-toulousain-montauban-loin-du-peloton-le-classement-des-budgets-de-premiere-division-pour-la-saison-2025-2026-12892843.php\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Midi Olympique<\/a>\u00a0have published the overall budgets of each of the 14 sides in the Top 14, with Toulouse, Lyon and Stade Fran\u00e7ais ranking in the top three.<\/p>\n<p>The reigning French champions have been increasing their budget every year, boasting a \u20ac55.6m budget, an eight per cent rise in just one year.<\/p>\n<p>These budgets only concern the squads\u2019 salaries, internal investments, infrastructure maintenance, personnel costs, and other operational expenses. JIFF contracts and academy expenditure are not accounted for in the published budget.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/top-14\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Top 14<\/a> has a maximum salary cap of \u20ac10.8m, but clubs with players involved in the French national team or those that have been involved in the 2023 Olympics are allowed to exceed this limit slightly. Sides that select more JIFF players in their 23s also receive bonuses if they average 15 JIFF contracted players per game.<\/p>\n<p>      <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/212.png.webp\"\/> <\/p>\n<p> Stade Francais <\/p>\n<p>    <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/10004900.png.webp\"\/> <\/p>\n<p> US Montauban <\/p>\n<p>    <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/live\/stade-francais-vs-us-montauban\/?g=947928\/\" class=\"link-box\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">   <\/p>\n<p>According to journalist Tanguy Scigala and Rugby Scope, \u201cIn 2019, Stade Toulousain had a \u20ac37.2m budget. However, six years later, the club has grown 50 per cent and now has a \u20ac55.6m budget, which demonstrates the\u00a0Rouge et Noir\u2019s economic strength, leading to several Top 14 and Champions Cup conquests.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Scigala also mentions that the rise of \u20ac10m from 2023 might be related to the requalification of the Stade Ernest-Wallon. In 2024, Toulouse reported their player budget, with the club spending \u20ac14m per season in players\u2019 contracts, made up of contract extensions, bonuses and new signings.<\/p>\n<p>Lyon, the former club of the recently elected new LNR president, have significantly increased their budget, going from 2023\u2019s \u20ac37.1m to \u20ac44.8m in 2025. After losing <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/players\/davit-niniashvili\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Davit Niniashvili<\/a> to La Rochelle, the club made several acquisitions, signing <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/players\/sam-simmonds\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sam Simmonds<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/players\/iosefo-masi\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Iosefo Masi<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/players\/jiuta-wainiqolo\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jiuta Wainiqolo<\/a>, Gabin Lorr\u00e9, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/players\/thomas-moukoro\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Thomas Moukoro<\/a> and Jense Roux.<\/p>\n<p>However, Lyon weren\u2019t the only ones expanding their budget, as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/teams\/bordeaux\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Bordeaux<\/a> B\u00e8gles have added \u20ac5.8m to its budget since 2023, an increase of 19 per cent in just two years.<\/p>\n<p>While the reasons behind the increase are unclear, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/european-champions-cup\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Investec Champions Cup<\/a> holders have made several structural improvements.<\/p>\n<p>Though every club from the Top 14 has increased their budget, Clermont, Stade Fran\u00e7ais, Castres, Toulon and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/teams\/montpellier\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Montpellier<\/a> have only made slight adjustments to theirs, with the latter increasing their budget by 5 per cent.<\/p>\n<p>The Top 14 has been growing for the last 10 years, breaking several records, with this year\u2019s Top 14 Final being a notable example, with 4.2m TV spectators tuning in to watch Toulouse\u2019s epic win over Bordeaux. The LNR had previously announced that the Top 14 averaged 16,000 fans per game, a total of 2.9m in a single season, a first time for the competition.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/top14-bu_page-0001.jpg.webp\"  class=\"lazy\" alt=\"Top 14 budgets\" width=\"766\" height=\"978\"\/>Top 14 budgets <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"French outlet\u00a0Midi Olympique\u00a0have published the overall budgets of each of the 14 sides in the Top 14, with&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":98147,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-98146","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-rugby","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98146","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=98146"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98146\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/98147"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}