Gerry Thornley: The incredible rise of Mohed Altrad and Montpellier

When Montpellier won the European Challenge Cup in 2016, the most significant trophy of their relatively short existence, by beating Harlequins in the final in Lyon, their owner Mohed Altrad was so emotional that he was virtually in tears. This was very significant too.

Altrad had reputedly never seen a game of rugby before taking over the then financially troubled club in 2011 and like most billionaires he is neither given to public displays of emotion nor shy about getting what he wants. It is not only emotionally that Altrad has invested in the club. Montpellier are no longer financially troubled. Au contraire.

Of all the nouveau riche, big city clubs now metropolising French club rugby to the increasing exclusion of small-town traditional hotbeds of the game, moneybags Montpellier, driven by their billionaire owner, are patently as ambitious as any of them.

Altrad bestrides the club. He is, according to one French journalist, more than the club’s patron. He is their Godfather. His name adorns the club’s grounds, Altrad Stadium, at least a dozen times and, as sponsor, the players’ jerseys as well. He wants to leave legacies with Montpellier, such as the European Champions Cup and a first Bouclier de Brennus.

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Nor do his ambitions stop there. He also had designs on buying Gloucester last season, which was eventually blocked by Premiership Rugby, and is co-sponsoring France’s bid for the 2023 World Cup in tandem with his long-time associate Bernard Laporte. The latter’s contractual relationship with Altrad for motivational speeches and alleged interference in a French Federation Appeals committee regarding a reduced punishment for Montpellier has led to an investigation by the French minister for sport.

There are few rags to riches stories quite like Altrad’s. Born into a Bedouin shepherds’ tribe in Syria, and effectively an orphan, he arrived in France from Syria in 1969, with little money and no French.

Now he heads the Montpellier-based Altrad Group, one of the world’s leading manufacturers of scaffolding and cement mixers, with over €2 billion in revenues and more than 21,000 employees. According to Forbes, as of last month Altrad’s estimated net worth is now almost €1.5 billion.

Since 2011 alone the Altrad Group has made 22 acquisitions, including firms in Qatar and Morocco. The company’s headquarters are a short walk from Altrad’s century-old mansion, quaintly dubbed “Le Cottage”. He has three swimming pools, and a Ferrari and Lamborghini are parked side-by-side in the yard.

His birth is not documented, so he is not sure of his age (his children recently picked out a date, March 9th, for his birthday) but when he was around four, his teenage mother became ill and died. His father, a powerful tribal leader who had raped her, disowned him. And Altrad’s only brother, who lived with their father, died from abuse.

Altrad was raised by his grandmother in a tent that moved with the tribe, following the rains that created grazing land for their goats, sheep and camels. His grandmother refused to let him go to school, insisting that shepherds had no need for books. He attended anyway, sneaking away before she woke, walking barefoot for an hour across the dunes. Getting an education was worth her wrath, he believed and the taunts of classmates. He was an outcast even by Bedouin standards.

“It was an instinct,” Altrad once told Forbes magazine. “I knew that I was condemned, and my only chance was school.”

When he was around seven, Altrad’s father reappeared long enough to buy him a bicycle, a rare treasure in the desert. In his first entrepreneurial venture, Altrad rented out the bike to other young boys and used the money for school supplies.

A few years later he went to live with another relative near Raqqa, now the headquarters of the so-called Islamic State, and after finishing first in his region, earned a scholarship from the Syrian government to study in France.

“I had no special dream at the time,” he says, “only the ambition not to accept my initial destiny.”

At first he barely understood his lecturers at Montpellier University, and initially survived on one meal a day. But he earned an undergraduate degree in physics and maths, and a Ph.D. in computer science. After stints at tech firms and the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, he bought a bankrupt scaffolding manufacturer in southern France with a partner in 1985. Despite knowing nothing about the industry, he led the firm to turn a profit and has expanded ever since.

Montpellier, formed in 1986 through a merger of Stade Montpelliérain and MUC Rugby, earned promotion to the Top 14 in 2003 by winning the Pro D2.

Soon after they unearthed a golden quartet of homegrown players in Louis Picamoles, Julien Thomas, Fulgence Ouedraogo and Francois Trinh-Duc.

But they were a politically troubled club, often at loggerheads with the city’s mayor, and barely avoided relegation in 2007. However, after Fabien Gathie took over in 2010, they surprised all and sundry by squeezing into the playoffs in 2011, and beat Castres and Racing to reach the French Top 14 final, where they lost to Toulouse.

But they over-reached, and as a result Montpellier’s mayor reached out to its richest resident, asking him to ensure the survival of the financially struggling club.

Altrad may be ruthless, but as well as a strong sense of culture (he is an avid writer and poet) he has a sense of civic duty. Although he had never even been to a match, he stepped in and bought the club. Now he never misses a game. He can be seen in the expensive seats among friends, outside his private box, with a red pin on his navy blazer; a symbol of the Légion d'honneur , France's equivalent of knighthood, which he received in 2005.

He has written three books, the first of which is a critically acclaimed sad yet uplifting semi autobiographic novel called Badawi, by Mohed Altrad. It was published in 1994 and revised in 2002. "Largely, it's true," says Altrad.

Under Galthie, Montpellier reached the playoffs for another three years in succession, having their best season in 2013-14 when finishing second in the table, only to lose 22-19 to Castres in the semi-finals. But Altrad and Galthie fell out, and the latter was replaced by Jake White in January 2015.

Galthie won awarded €484,500 in damages for a wrongful dismissal, which was appealed by Altrad, and prevented Galthie from returning to coaching until last January, before he pitched up at Toulon this season.

Montpellier finished eighth in 2014-15, but the following season won the Challenge Cup and finished third in the Top 14, losing to Toulon in the semi-finals. But crowds fell as the Montpellier public never warmed to White’s South African-infused brand of rugby.

There were a dozen South Africans on their player roster, leading to the moniker ‘les langueboks’ and White fell out of favour with Altrad, in part after apparently letting the RFU know he would be interested in the England job.

In September last year, Montpellier announced that White would be leaving at the end of the season, to be replaced by the former Clermont and Scotland coach Vern Cotter, who has brought Alex King and Nathan Hines with him.

The squad was further buttressed by expensive signings, most obviously the prodigal Picamoles, Ruan Pienaar and the 50-times capped All Blacks outhalf Aaron Cruden. Dave Ellis, the one-time Connacht skills coach now with the Blues in Auckland, ran the International Rugby Academy of New Zealand for over 10 years, during which innumerable All Blacks and other internationals passed through. He rated Cruden the most talented of all.

In addition, they reputedly made Yacouba Camarra the most handsomely paid young French player in the Top 14 when signing him from Toulouse, brought in Julien Bardy from Clermont, Kélian Galletier from Lyon and Jan Serfontein from the Bulls.

There is plenty of debate in France as to whether Montpellier are complying with the salary cap, circa €11 million depending on the number of French internationals. When asked about this, the Toulon owner Mourad Boudjellal said: “I’m not a judge, I give my opinion, everybody does whatever he wants, and if he wants, Altrad can have 20 million or 30 million payroll, it does not bother me. I want him to take care of his club as he takes care of his business. When I want to increase my players, I have to increase my services, the price of seats. I must not increase the price of my concrete mixers or the price of my rents.”

Under a new agreement with the French Federation, all Top 14 and ProD2 clubs must have on average 14 French qualified players in their matchday 23 over the course of the season, or incur penalty deductions of between two and 10 points from the start of next season.

Montpellier still have nine South Africans on their books, including the influential hooker Bismarck du Plessis and lock Paul Willemse, as well as three Georgian forwards, the Aussie backs Hoe Tomane and Jesse Mogg and the Fijian wingers Nemani Nadolo and Tomaci Nagusa.

But under Cotter everyone must speak French, something White himself didn’t do. There is a sense, understandably, that Cotter’s methods and an all-court game for all conditions ala Clermont have yet to fully bed in, and he knows that the European Champions Cup will be a step up.

“I think it stands out because it’s an international competition. You hop out of one car and get into another and it’s a bigger, faster model and you haven’t got a long season,” said Cotter. “You’ve got to peak for those games and you’ve got to be right for 80 minutes because if you don’t, you’re out and you don’t make the playoffs. The Top 14 is a long, arduous journey, whereas this is straight in, do your best, play well, so the intensity lifts obviously and your focus narrows and you really do your homework. But it’s exciting.”

Cotter is trying to keep a lid on expectations. “We probably start off as the bottom-ranked team in the pool. We know we have to earn some respect within the competition and that’s what we’re going to try and do.”

Conceivably, this might be a relatively opportune time to play Montpellier. But, with Monsieur Altrad backing them, that certainly won’t always be the case.

Montpellier in the European Champions Cup.
2011-12: Pool stages.
2012-13: Quarter-finals (lost 14-36 v Clermont),
2013-14: Pool stages.
2014-15: Pool stages.
2015-16: Won European Challenge Cup.
2016-17: Pool stages.

Home: Played 15, Won 9, Drawn 2, Lost 4.
Away: Played 16, Won 2, Drawn 0, Lost 14.