Peter Jackson: Money can’t always buy you success

The more Toulouse have to spend, the more they fail. A club that doesn’t know what it takes to deal with a shortfall, keep falling short, writes Peter Jackson.

According to official figures recently released by the organisers of the French Top 14, the Ligue Nationale de Rugby, Toulouse’s budget for last season soared to an all-time high of €35.02m. And where did it get them? Some clubs have the business nous to make a little go a long way. Toulouse, over-exposed to Ulster’s high-octane game on successive weekends, wake up this morning to the grim reality that they have spent a fortune and got nowhere.

While Toulon keep proving that money does buy success on a perennial basis, Toulouse cannot even buy a place in the last eight. Reducing their budget to a mere €32m this season has made not a blind bit of difference. The decline that began some years back has now reduced the old emperors of the European game to another bunch of also-rans — selling-plaiters in a field which for years they graced as thoroughbreds equipped with the cleanest pair of heels.