The 2023–24 Top 14 competition is the 125th

French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...

domestic

rugby union Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In its m ...

club competition operated by the

Ligue Nationale de Rugby The French National Rugby League (french: Ligue Nationale de Rugby), known as the LNR, manages the professional rugby sector in France, by delegation of the Ministry of Youth and Sports and the French Rugby Federation. LNR * organises, manages and ...

(LNR).

Format

The top six teams at the end of the regular season (after all the teams played one another twice, once at home, once away) enter a knockout stage to decide the ''Champions of France''. This consists of three rounds: the teams finishing third to sixth in the table play quarter-finals (hosted by the third and fourth placed teams). The winners then face the top two teams in the semi-finals, with the winners meeting in the final at the

Stade de France The Stade de France (, ) is the national stadium of France, located just north of Paris in the commune of Saint-Denis. Its seating capacity of 80,698 makes it the sixth-largest stadium in Europe. The stadium is used by the France national foot ...

in Saint-Denis. The LNR uses a slightly different bonus points system from that used in most other rugby competitions. It trialled a new system in 2007–08 explicitly designed to prevent a losing team from earning more than one bonus point in a match, a system that also made it impossible for either team to earn a bonus point in a drawn match. LNR chose to continue with this system for subsequent seasons. France's bonus point system operates as follows: * 4 points for a win. * 2 points for a draw. * 1 bonus point for winning while scoring at least 3 more tries than the opponent. This replaces the standard bonus point for scoring 4 tries regardless of the match result. * 1 bonus point for losing by 5 points (or fewer). The margin had been 7 points until being changed prior to the 2014–15 season. From the 2017–18 season onwards, only the 14th placed team is automatically relegated to the

Pro D2 Rugby Pro D2, also known as Pro D2 is the second tier of rugby union club competition division in France. It is operated by Ligue Nationale de Rugby (LNR) which also runs the division directly above, the first division Top 14. Rugby Pro D2 was in ...

. The 13th placed team play the runner-up of the

play-off, with the winner taking up the final place in the Top 14 for the following season.

Teams

Fourteen clubs will compete in the 2023–24 Top 14 season, 13 of them returning.

Brive Brive-la-Gaillarde (; Limousin dialect of oc, Briva la Galharda) is a commune of France. It is a sub-prefecture and the largest city of the Corrèze department. It has around 46,000 inhabitants, while the population of the agglomeration was 75 ...

were relegated to

after finishing at the bottom of the table the previous season. Oyonnax is the sole promoted club, finishing first in the Pro D2 the previous season and winning the Pro D2 playoffs.

Perpignan Perpignan (, , ; ca, Perpinyà ; es, Perpiñán ; it, Perpignano ) is the prefecture of the Pyrénées-Orientales department in southern France, in the heart of the plain of Roussillon, at the foot of the Pyrenees a few kilometres from the ...

, who finished 13th in the previous Top 14 season, defeated Grenoble in the relegation playoffs to retain their place.

Format

Teams

Table

Regular season

Round 1

Round 2

Round 3

Round 4

Round 5

Round 6

See also

References