Laurent Marti, pillar of UBB

A day like any other, or almost, in a professional rugby club. The players are busy with weight training, group training, massages, and physiotherapy, while the administration is busy behind screens. All this in apparent serenity, while four days later, an immense roar is about to resound, 600 kilometers north of Bègles: from the outskirts of Bordeaux to the Stade de France in Saint-Denis, there is only one (big) step left to take, to play the final of the Top 14, the French championship at the pinnacle of the global circuit.

A deadline that therefore presents itself to the Union Bordeaux Bègles (UBB) and its president Laurent Marti, who grumbles with a smile against this painful countdown to a final week where it is necessary to "put everything in place urgently, manage the ordeal of logistics, decide who to invite or not while trying to spare sensitivities..." A real headache without a doubt, as much as a waking dream. Because all the stables of the country are now on vacation, except two who still covet, this Saturday, June 28, the Bouclier de Brennus, the supreme trophy of a French rugby in full swing: Toulouse and, therefore, the UBB.

An assumption between the two big names of the season: the Occitan institution that inspires fear and admiration in all its opponents by dint of collecting cups, and the Aquitaine daguet who, at the end of May, finally discovered ecstasy, being crowned European champion – a competition paradoxically less posh than the Top 14. Which inevitably gives Laurent Marti's group a taste of comeback. The man without whom, on the banks of the Garonne, history would undoubtedly never have been written in this way. Yet another managerial role also places him in… Toulouse, where the business leader runs TopTex, a distributor of promotional clothing and accessories which, in a struggling sector, is in as much insolent a form as the UBB players, with 550 employees and a constantly increasing turnover.

A sporting and entrepreneurial strike that doesn't encourage the native of Périgord to show off, he who, in the absence of real local support, doesn't forget that he was "ten minutes away from giving up everything" on the rugby side, in 2010, three years after having already swallowed up a lot of money by taking the helm of the club recently formed from a merger between the rival teams of Bordeaux the well-to-do and Bègles the popu. "I didn't invent anything," tempers the tanned boss, in loafers, ecru trousers and a fitted navy shirt, sitting at the large, inevitably oval table of an office, all the less flashy as its surface area has been reduced by half to free up storage space. "The model I have implemented is the same as in Toulouse, La Rochelle, or perhaps tomorrow, Bayonne: a strong anchoring in the territory, a real economy and management imbued with common sense where, on the field as well as off, we aggregate skills while trying to breathe life into them. Of course, this will never guarantee reaching the top, but at least the foundations are there." And to draw a parallel with business, "where the human factor also predominates, except that the interlocutors are no longer the public, but the suppliers and customers, and that, from production to service, we retain the ability to intervene directly. Which, without putting on our boots, is not the case in rugby, where, being constantly judged and very exposed to the media, the pressure is much higher." Marti played at a decent level from the age of 15 to 30, while at the same time setting up his first company at 20.

"I don't think Laurent has changed over time. He remains a hard worker, full of energy, who certainly embarked on the adventure alone, but knew how to rely on listening, respect and resilience," assures Patrick Laporte, the first coach of the UBB, from 2006 to 2009. "A generous and loyal man, cultivating similar values ​​in sport and business, where even his competitors recognize the qualities of the character," adds the man who today co-chairs the Lionnes, the local women's rugby team.

"Achieving an ambitious goal, as long as it's realistic, is within anyone's reach, as long as you put the necessary determination, commitment, and intelligence into it," insists the man in direct contact, who spontaneously uses the familiar form. An aphorism that, in his case, germinated in Prigonrieux, a commune in the Dordogne, ten minutes from Bergerac, where his family grew up, around parents with Spanish and Italian ancestry, accommodated in the pieds-noirs style. The mother pampered the home, which was completed by a brother and a sister, while the father climbed the ladder that would take him from accountant to the management of the local mortgage loan.

From a childhood without any conflict or spark, from which "memories of love, freedom in the great outdoors and moments of boredom" float, the son extracts himself step by step. What to do when you "don't like school too much" ? English teacher? Gym teacher? A vain appearance at the biology faculty in Toulouse and it is ultimately a BTS in commercial action that ends up setting the pace. Perhaps because the title includes the word "action". From a suitcase of advertising lighters that falls into his hands one day, Laurent Marti, driven by a "need for independence, responsibility and challenge" , jumps into the deep end, barely of age, with his father's blessing.

"I liked it," he sums up some forty years later, having in the meantime ticked the boxes of textiles and rugby, a sport that he persists in adorning with all the virtues, notwithstanding the repeated affairs and hiccups that tarnish the image (violence, domestic or otherwise, drugs, racism, etc.). To the point of confessing a "consuming passion," where the fickle voter (one in two ballots, roughly) and loving father (two daughters aged 30 and 27, from a previous union), willingly lets himself be consumed by "excitement, stress and happiness," ultimately, when victory is at the end.

This was not the case last year at the same time, when in Marseille, UBB was swept away in the Top 14 final by a hurricane already coming from Toulouse (59-3). That evening, Laurent Marti spoke in the locker room, to persuade his stunned players that it should instead be seen as a "source of motivation" and that tomorrow would be another day. An inspiration which, like any try scored, only needs to be transformed.

1967 Born in Bergerac (Dordogne).

1987 Creates his first company.

2007 Takes over the presidency of the Union Bordeaux Bègles (UBB).

May 2025 Winner of the Champions Cup.

June 28 Top 14 Final against Toulouse (9 p.m.).