Bourgoin benefactor set to leave

MUNSTER’S Heineken Cup opponents Bourgoin have been hit with the news that their benefactor wants to end his involvement with the club at the end of this season.

Club president Pierre Martinet, who has bankrolled the club for a decade — since the beginning of the professional era — wants to sell his shares, and told Bourgoin supporters: “I will put my hand in my pocket at the end of the season but it will be the last time, because I will not put my company [Martinet SA] at risk and I must preserve my personal inheritance.

“It would be ideal if a new shareholder would come forward. If that were the case, I’d be ready to give up over 50% of the shareholding and thus the presidency.”

This is not the first time Martinet has made noises about leaving, having considered several different buy-out offers in the past.

The passionate Bourgoin fan has never accepted any of those offers, however, and he remains generous — at the start of this season he invested an estimated 1.5 million into the club.

French rugby websites suggest that Pierre Raschi, the club’s manager and a former club captain, is likely to take over, but Martinet says Raschi, a former number eight, is better suited to playing activities than acting as the club’s general manager: “He works hard but his attributes are sporting rather than commercial.”

With coaches Christophe Urios and Guy Tourlonias coming to the end of their contracts it seems more than likely that Martinet is signalling that Raschi could soon be given the job of coaching the side.

Munster play Bourgoin in their Round 5 game of the Heineken Cup at the Stade de Geneve, Switzerland, this Sunday (ko 1pm Irish time).