Northern Edition

Select Edition

Northern Northern
Southern Southern
Global Global
New Zealand New Zealand
France France

Chris Farrell stood down by Munster over French court case

(Photo by Brendan Moran/Sportsfile via Getty Images)

Ireland midfielder Chris Farrell has been stood down with immediate effect by Munster after the Bordeaux Court of Appeal confirmed on Thursday he had been charged with the alleged non-prevention of crime in the Grenoble rugby club rape case.

ADVERTISEMENT

French media outlets have reported that the case against Rory Grice, Loic Jammes and Denis Coulson has been referred to the criminal court following allegations that a young woman was raped following a night out after a Grenoble Top 14 match in Bordeaux in 2017.  

The magistrates also confirmed “the presence of sufficient charges” to charge two other players, the New Zealander Dylan Hayes and Irishman Farrell for “non-prevention of crime”.

Video Spacer

Video Spacer

None of the five players are still at Grenoble. Grice and Jammes currently respectively play for Oyonnax and Provence in French Pro D2, Coulson has fallen away from the professional rugby scene while Hayes is at Valence Romans, the Nationale level club. 

Farrell, meanwhile, has gone on to win Ireland honours since his 2017 move to Munster, being capped 15 times and featuring in the 2018 Grand Slam win and at the 2019 World Cup in Japan. He played 59 minutes of Munster’s URC new-season opener at Cardiff last Saturday but now won’t be involved with the Irish province for the foreseeable future. 

A statement released by the club read: “Munster Rugby and Chris Farrell have agreed that, with immediate effect, he will be stepping back from his involvement with the Munster squad whilst legal proceedings in France, concerning his alleged involvement as a witness to an alleged crime in 2017, are on-going. As this is an active legal matter before the French courts, we have no further comment.” 

ADVERTISEMENT

LIVE

{{item.title}}

Trending on RugbyPass

Comments

0 Comments
Be the first to comment...

Join free and tell us what you really think!

Sign up for free
ADVERTISEMENT

Latest Features

Comments on RugbyPass

J
JW 24 minutes ago
'Passionate reunion of France and New Zealand shows Fabien Galthie is wrong to rest his stars'

Where? I remember saying "unders"? The LNR was formed by the FFR, if I said that in a way that meant the 'pro' side of the game didn't have an equal representation/say as the 'amateur' side (FFR remit) that was not my intent.


But also, as it is the governing body, it also has more responsibility. As long as WR looks at FFR as the running body for rugby in France, that 'power' will remain. If the LNR refuses to govern their clubs use of players to enable a request by FFR (from WR) to ensure it's players are able to compete in International rugby takes place they will simply remove their participation. If the players complain to the France's body, either of their health and safety concerns (through playing too many 'minutes' etc) or that they are not allowed to be part in matches of national interest, my understanding is action can be taken against the LNR like it could be any other body/business. I see where you're coming from now re EPCR and the shake up they gave it, yes, that wasn't meant to be a separate statement to say that FFR can threaten them with EPCR expulsion by itself, simply that it would be a strong repercussion for those teams to be removed (no one would want them after the above).


You keep bringing up these other things I cannot understand why. Again, do you think if the LNR were not acting responsibly they would be able to get away with whatever they want (the attitude of these posters saying "they pay the players")? You may deem what theyre doing currently as being irresponsible but most do not. Countries like New Zealand have not even complained about it because they've never had it different, never got things like windfall TV contracts from France, so they can't complain because theyre not missing out on anything. Sure, if the French kept doing things like withholding million dollar game payments, or causing millions of dollars of devaluation in rights, they these things I'm outlining would be taking place. That's not the case currently however, no one here really cares what the French do. It's upto them to sort themselves out if they're not happy. Now, that said, if they did make it obvious to World Rugby that they were never going to send the French side away (like they possibly did stating their intent to exclude 20 targeted players) in July, well then they would simply be given XV fixtures against tier 2 sides during that window and the FFR would need to do things like the 50/50 revenue split to get big teams visiting in Nov.

305 Go to comments
LONG READ
LONG READ 'Steve Borthwick hung his troops out to dry - he should take some blame' 'Steve Borthwick hung his troops out to dry - he should take some blame'
Search