Leading professional clubs to clamp down on cocaine ‘plague’ in rugby union
Maxime Lucu of Bordeaux Begles during a Champions Cup match against Harlequins.
Leading Top 14 clubs Bordeaux Bègles and Racing 92 will now subject their players to random drug testing, following a ‘plague’ of cocaine usage across French rugby.
The clampdown comes following scathing remarks from Béatrice Bourgeois, the chairwoman of the French anti-doping agency, and also follows the scandals from the French summer tour to Argentina.
“Rugby has a real cocaine problem”
In an interview, Bourgeois detailed the striking data that rugby had seen a total of nine positive tests for cocaine in rugby alone across both 2023 and 2024 to date.
“Rugby has a real cocaine problem,” she said. “Whether at sevens, league or union.”
“We are seeing it more and more. In 2023, we had seven positive tests for cocaine – five were in rugby. In 2024, up to now there have been four cases and they are all in rugby.”
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‘Under surveillance’
Also commenting on the rising issue of cocaine in French rugby, Laurent Marti, President of Bordeaux, announced that his players will now be subject to random drugs tests, and that his players are now ‘under surveillance’.
“We told the players: ‘Be careful, there is a plague, we don’t want it in our sport,” said Marti. “Therefore we are making sure that you are more under surveillance.”
Bordeaux and France scrum-half, Maxime Lucu, also added: “Drugs at parties is a plague. We are in a sport that is confronted by that during the third halves.”
Scandal tainted summer for French rugby
This time last year, it was only positive news coming out of French rugby ahead of the World Cup, but just 12 months later they have been thrust into the spotlight for negative reasons.
Toulon fullback Melvyn Jaminet was suspended for 34-weeks and fined €30,000 (£25,335) following a racist video on his Instagram page. Teammates Hugo Auradou and Oscar Jegou – the latter copped a ban for cocaine last year – were also accused of rape, an accusation they deny.
