Rugby News

Beast-like French second row Sebastian Chabal is on the market after his contract with Racing Metro was cancelled with immediate effect.

Racing Metro confirmed that they had parted company with the 34-year old in a statement last night, saying that Club president Jacky Lorenzetti and Chabal had disagreed over the club’s "sporting strategy" and that both parties had "decided to put an end to their collaboration and prefer to leave on good terms".

The parting on good terms explanation, however, flies in the face of reports that Chabal and coach Pierre Berbezier were involved in a heated exchange on Monday night.

Chabal signed for Racing Metro in 2009 on a barely comprehensible €1 million per year contract, massive money even for a club such as Racing who have a history of signing big-name players on big-money contracts.

Negotiations over a new contract reportedly stalled last year after Chabal suffered a dip in form, while rumours circulated at the tail end of last year that Toulon were sniffing round the second row-cum-back row forward.

Chabal is now available to go wherever he wants, although it is questionable who would want to take on a 34-year old with such a controversial reputation who is probably going to have some pretty big financial demands.

He might be one of the most recognisable faces in rugby, but it was often his rugged appearance as opposed to his performances that earned him such fame and notoriety, even though he managed to rack up 62 appearances for France in his career.

Maybe we’re being a bit harsh on old Sebastian. After all, we’re pretty sure he’s still capable of meting out punishment of the kind he did to a couple of the All-Black players in the video below.