The international pillar Mohamed Haouas, sentenced to one year in prison in Montpellier for hitting his wife, is assigned to the Prud’hommes by the Clermont club for “suspension of contract”. Aged 29, the player, at the end of his contract with Montpellier Hérault Rugby, should have joined ASM on July 1 for three seasons. But the Auvergne club felt that his conviction would not allow him to “wear his colors”.
“We have made a request for interim relief to the industrial tribunal for a suspension of the contract, so that it is not active on July 1,” said the Clermont club. The hearing is scheduled for June 21 in Clermont.
The player’s lawyer disputes this subpoena
This assignment, believes Marc Gallix, the player’s lawyer, “seems totally unfounded insofar as [les dirigeants de Clermont] ask for the suspension of a contract which has not yet started to be executed, since it is effective from July 1 (…). I don’t see how they could ask for its termination in advance. It seems completely absurd to me”.
The pillar with 16 selections for the France team was sentenced to one year in prison on May 30 by the Montpellier Criminal Court. He hit his wife, who was smoking a cigarette in front of the mall where she works. His sentence is flexible and his conditions will be discussed at a new hearing on June 26.
Clermont considers the facts unacceptable and incompatible with the values of the club
In the wake of his conviction, Clermont had indicated for his part that Haouas “will not be able to wear, on the ground, the colors” of the ASM, considering that the facts alleged against the international were “unacceptable”. In the France team, the coach of the Blues, Fabien Galthié, announced last week that the pillar would not play the World Cup (September 8 – October 28) in France.
Mohamed Haouas’s lawyer believes that the player should “appear on July 1 at the club’s headquarters to start training” and only then could ASM have “other arguments to break the contract, for example time constraints which are incompatible with the status of a professional player”, depending on the possible adjustment of his sentence, for example. Such a remedy, he added, would come “within the framework of the beginning of its activity; before, it does not seem possible to me”.