Disgraced France prop Haouas poised for Top 14 return

Disgraced French rugby player Mohamed Haouas is poised for a controversial return to the Top 14 – according to reports from France.

Haouas had earned 16 international caps for France after making his debut for Les Bleus back in 2020. However, despite undeniable skills on the rugby field, Haouas’s off-pitch behavior over the space of a number of years has left his reputation tarnished and his Test career all but destroyed.

His off field antics culminated with the 123kg front row being sentenced to a year in prison for a violent assault on his wife. The attack was captured on a CCTV camera, which showed him assaulting his wife Imane in downtown Montpellier after he apparently caught her smoking a cigarette outside a shopping centre.

He appealed the sentence and is yet to see any jail time on the back of the conviction.

That conviction came just year after he was handed a 15-month suspended sentence for his role in a spate of burglaries in 2014.

Following the end of his contract with Montpellier in June 2023 the 29-year-old tighthead prop moved to the West coast with Biarritz. Haouas was initially fated to join Clermont, but the Auvergne club attempted to tear up the agreement following the prop’s headline grabbing attack on his wife. The prop took Clermont to court for revoking the contract and won, with Clermont ultimately agreeing to make a settlement payment after a judge found in favour of Haouas.

To date, Haouas has played 16 matches with twelve starts for Biarittz in the ProD2, yet his journey seems to now be circling back to Montpellier according to Midi Libre.

A product of Montpellier’s academy, a speculated return to Hérault will certainly stir debate. Notably Montpellier is now helmed by Bernard Laporte, a figure who himself has courted controversy for his own brushes with the law. It could be possible that the former France head coach is more open to idea of redemption as a result of his own journey in the sport.

Time will tell if the deal goes through.