ASBH: “It seems like it’s annoying when we score tries,” regrets Béziers president Jean-Michel Vidal

President Jean-Michel Vidal announces that his club will still aim for qualification next season. – Frédéric Bedos

The season, the semi-final, the refereeing of the last match, the supporters, the partners, the budget, the Top 14… The chairman of the board of ASBH takes stock as the players and staff go on vacation.

The least we can say is that your club has had an extraordinary season, no?< /p>

It's really been a great season, but with a lot of frustration because the result is not what we were hoping for. I have the feeling, if we look back at the matches against Nevers, Brive and Vannes, that we lost the one that was the easiest…hellip; We are never happy with our fate, but I am convinced that with all the injuries we have had, particularly those of long duration, this has prevented us from certain renewals on the match sheets. Players were constantly on the go and in the end, they perhaps lacked a little physical and mental freshness.

In Vannes, you were annoyed by the fact that three tries were refused to your team…

In the semi-final, this constitutes a record! I have mixed feelings about refereeing. It seems like it's annoying when we score tries. I remind you that on the last try that we scored against Nevers, there was a video call, the same during the last try against Brive and this time, in Vannes, four video calls. At the end, there is a voluntary forward from the Vannes winger. If the foul is called, it can give us a match point in the scoring area. But this time, the video referee did not intervene…hellip;

Won't your team's journey trigger certain levers, attract, for example, new partners ?

The first connection was with our public. We hope that next season we will have a bigger crowd at the stadium. At the start of the season, we had an average of 4,500 supporters. We hope to reach 8,000. And I am talking about real supporters. Not individuals who, in Vannes, tore out 30 seats in the stands. An imbecility that will cost us dearly. I would have preferred to allocate this sum to recruitment… In any case, people want the club to progress, we must help it. Whether it is the supporters by coming to the stadium, the partners by accepting a few increases in their aid and by attracting new sponsors. This is the only way we will achieve this. Let's not forget that we had the smallest budget of the six clubs that qualified. Even if money is not everything, and we have proven that, but we need this momentum to continue. For now, our partners are aware of this. In any case, we are trying to do everything to welcome people well and they know it. We need a multiplicity of sponsors.

What will the budget be next season knowing that it was 8.5 million euros this season ?

We will go up to 9 million euros. That is the forecast for the coming year and we will stick to it. Knowing that we are closing the current financial year without losing a single cent. Few clubs can boast of having a balanced budget. We do. The proof is that each time we had to replace an injured player by finding a medical joker, the DNACG never caused us a problem. That was not the case at the time… We would have gone up to the Top 14, we knew that it would have been complicated financially. Such a rise is expected over two to three years. We need to have a bigger budget, to manage to double it in the coming years.

It will therefore not be doubled this season ?

Double it, I don't think so. But if we can supercharge it relative to our predictions, of course we will.

Will your club aim for the Top 14 next season ?

The problem is that we can predict it and not get there, or like this year, not have considered it and be all about it close! The objective was to qualify and the players allowed us to go beyond that. Next season we will, of course, aim for qualification. Even if it will be complicated. But with an extra year, we will prepare a little more for the rise to Top 14.

How was the recruitment focused??

We can say that on paper, the team should perform better. But that doesn't mean anything. We tried, in any case, qualitatively, to double the positions with experienced people. Apart from the leaked names, we cannot yet announce who will be coming since the contracts end at the end of June.

The mayor said he had contacts with possible buyers of the club. Do you know more ?

We are here to manage the club. The mayor is the owner, he is the one who manages the buyers. I can't say more.

When was the resumption set for the players and staff ?

They have four weeks of vacation. They will resume the first week of July, around the 4th-5th. They will then leave for an internship in Aveyron. They will play a friendly match in Camarès and should play the traditional Feria match against Narbonne.

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