Racing 92 are to launch legal proceedings against want-away Springbok utility back Johan Goosen over what they allege is”blatant fraud”.
The Parisian club said the 24-year-old, player of the year last season in France, had not appeared “for the last two days and seems to have vacated his residence,”
Last month the Springboks star said he was quitting rugby to return to South Africa.
“As far as Racing 92 is concerned, Johan Goosen still remains bound to the club by an employment contract lasting four years, while his residence, company car, locker and place in the locker-room all remain at his disposal,” said the club, who play Munster in European action this weekend.
“Racing 92 believes that the club is a victim of blatant fraud which Johan Goosen, his associates, and various advisers must answer for in court.”
Goosen, who starred last season as Racing won the French title and reached the European Champions Cup final, was reported in December to be taking up a commercial director’s job in South Africa.
Goosen joined Racing in 2014 from the Cheetahs and has won 13 caps for the Springboks, but has played just three times for the Paris club this season.
Racing said its action against Goosen will include a complaint to an industrial tribunal “to prosecute the player’s fraudulent and wrongful failure to fulfil his contractual obligations and to compensate the resulting significant damage for the club”.
It will also file a criminal complaint because “the open-ended employment contract produced by Johan Goosen and signed by one of his friends and business associates appears to constitute a phony document, given that it is not conceivable that a player puts an end to his sporting career while at the peak of such a career,”
afp
General consensus among the public in SA (from online comments I’ve read) seems to be that Goosen is a plonker trying to get out of his contract so that he can move somewhere else as soon as possible, and that he is basically dragging SA Rugby players’ reputations through the mud over in France.
I think he may well become persona non grata in France if that is indeed his plan!
@ Scrumdown:
Have been seeing the reports on this for a little while and not really sure what is going on there. Just seems odd as he was doing so well there last season and if he wasn’t happy why would he have signed quite a longer contract. Don’t know how the French justice system works so will be interesting to see if this makes it to the courts. If the report is correct and they have added the criminal side to things then I wonder if that is to try and make sure he appears, what is the relationship between France and SA like if he doesn’t want to go to France for court if it ever ended up there would they be able to press for extradition. That seems like it is taking things too far but there seems to be so much about this that we don’t know. Without knowing what advice he got and the details of the contract it is hard to know whether just exploiting a loop hole in it but even so think it’s wrong to walk out on a deal especially in this way.
Seems as if you have a combination of a petulant child and greedy advisors.
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