Top 14: Montauban president Daniel Havis resigns
16
October 2008
Montauban president Daniel Havis has resigned in the latest
twist to the financial saga entwining the Top 14 club - (Read
More).
Havis
handed in his resignation on Tuesday evening after the
club’s administrative council turned down his request for a
judicial inquiry into club’s accounts under the previous
president Patrick Bardot.
Just
days after the club came within a whisker of creating a
massive on-field shock by beating Munster on their Heineken
Cup debut, their off-field turmoil is now threatening to
spiral out of control.
Central
to Havis’ discontent is the fact Montauban are alleged to
have overspent their season’s budget by €1.3m in 2007, a
discovery unearthed when Havis himself headed up recent club
audit.
As a
consequence the Tarn club were summoned to explain the
shortfall to the DNACG this week, the league’s financial
watchdog, with Albi’s relegation last year for “financial
irregularities” setting a precedent Montauban must now be
terrified of emulating.
With the
prospect of Draconian penalties in the air, including
possible demotion to Pro D2, Havis has clearly had enough
and decided to walk.
It
remains to be seen how the club will react, but it does have
the support of political leaders from within the
Tarn-et-Garonnais Department.
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