Club tug of war over one of rugby highest paid players

The return of Johan Goosen to South Africa seems to be locked in, but whether the Cheetahs or the Bulls win the heart of the former Springbok is not yet not clear.

Netwerk 24 spoke to the playmaker, who had at been at the centre of a bizarre Top 14 transfer saga in 2018, and the Montpellier man is yet to decide where he’ll play his rugby next season.

According to the article, Goosen could yet choose the Cheetahs, where he has stated a desire to play with fellow Springboks Francois Steyn and Ruan Pienaar. The Cheetahs are also situated closer to his farmstead in Aliwal North.

Goodbye 2020:

Video Player is loading.

Play Video

PauseSkip BackwardSkip Forward

Unmute

Current Time 0:00

/

Duration 0:00

Loaded: 0%

0:00

Stream Type LIVE

Seek to live, currently behind liveLIVE

Remaining Time -0:00

 

1x

Playback Rate

Chapters

• Chapters

Descriptions

• descriptions off, selected

Captions

• captions settings, opens captions settings dialog
• captions off, selected

Audio Track

Fullscreen

This is a modal window.

Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window.

Text

ColorWhiteBlackRedGreenBlueYellowMagentaCyanOpacityOpaqueSemi-Transparent

Text Background

ColorBlackWhiteRedGreenBlueYellowMagentaCyanOpacityOpaqueSemi-TransparentTransparent

Caption Area Background

ColorBlackWhiteRedGreenBlueYellowMagentaCyanOpacityTransparentSemi-TransparentOpaque

Font Size

50%75%100%125%150%175%200%300%400%

Text Edge Style

NoneRaisedDepressedUniformDrop shadow

Font Family

Proportional Sans-SerifMonospace Sans-SerifProportional SerifMonospace SerifCasualScriptSmall Caps

ResetDone

Close Modal Dialog

End of dialog window.

Close Modal Dialog

This is a modal window. This modal can be closed by pressing the Escape key or activating the close button.

Goodbye 2020:

Standing in the way is Jake White’s high-flying Blue Bulls, who are keen to win Goosen’s affections.  The fact that they will be competing in the PRO16 in 2021 while the Cheetahs have been booted out of the competition, could see the utility back head to Pretoria instead.

Montpellier famously bought Goosen out of his Racing 92 contract for a whopping €1.4 million euro after Goosen ‘retired’ to manage a stud farm in South Africa, only to come out of retirement and return to the Top 14 with MHR. Racing 92 demanded reparations for what they saw as an insincere retirement and the clubs settled with billionaire owner Mohed Altrad ultimately buying Goosen out of his contract.

It’s no secret that Montpellier need to lower their wage bill, a point of some contention in France.

In 2020 the club were fined €3 million, but faced no further sanctions, after coming to an agreement with the LNR over alleged irregularities in how they paid players. In 2019 the club had a €470,000 salary cap fine – €70,000 for the failure to communicate “certain elements” and €400,000 for exceeding the ceiling – for the 2017/18 season annulled. They were already in the dock for exceeding the ceiling by an estimated €350,000 to €400,000 during the 2016-2017 season.