The MHR would be on the verge of recruiting Castres pillar Wilfrid Hounkpatin (32 years old, 1 selection) sentenced to 12 months in prison after domestic violence.
Over the past few months, Paul and his friends have adopted a rather unusual reflex. With each recruitment announcement from the Montpellier rugby club, they look not at the rugby pedigree of the targeted player but… at his possible legal problems.
Admitting that they are not very connoisseurs of rugby, they are this new audience, students in particular, that the MHR had managed to conquer and bring to the stadium. Particularly during the 2021-2022 season, that of the title.
But since the Haouas affair, doubt seems to have set in among these young men. And now, to focus on the “recruitment ethics” of their club.
The announcement, by the Team, this Wednesday, June 26, of the agreement very close to being concluded with Castres right pillar Wilfrid Hounkpatin (32 years old, 1 selection against Australia in 2021) only made them confirm a trend that they find unhealthy.
On April 3, the international was sentenced to 12 months in prison with a suspended sentence and an obligation to follow an awareness course on domestic violence, and an obligation to receive psychological care for acts of domestic violence, dating back to January 2024. .
The return of Mohamed Haouas
A recruitment which comes a few weeks after the announcement of Mohamed Haouas’ return to the club. After a season in Biarritz, the 30-year-old international returned to Montpellier where he was sentenced to one year in prison in May 2023 for hitting his wife, then in June of the same year, to 18 months in prison, including nine farms, for “aggravated violence”, committed during a fight on January 1, 2014. The player appealed this decision.
Another recruitment that raises questions is that of the former Scottish international Stuart Hogg who will come out of retirement to join the MHR. Last March, the former best player of the 2016 and 2017 Six Nations Tournament was arrested by the police in front of his ex-wife’s home. The British authorities accused him of having engaged in “threatening and abusive behavior”.
He had been released by Police Scotland after promising to accept a summons to appear at Jedburgh Sheriff Court next July.
To this particular picture, we must add the case of Bastien Chalureau, sentenced on appeal on January 16, 2024 to six months in prison suspended for assault in a parking lot in Toulouse, notably on the former rugby player Yannick Larguet. If the racist assault had been retained at first instance, it was not on appeal.
