At 34, Wesley Fofana posted a message on his Twitter account to formalize the end of his rugby career.
He, who has spent his entire club career in Clermont and has 48 selections for the France team, has decided to draw a line under the high level due to repeated injuries in particular.
“
These last two years have sometimes been difficult to manage
, he confesses.
An obvious observation that my body no longer cashed the level of requirement that professional rugby now demands.
I therefore make the choice to anticipate the end of my career.
During the last season, he was thus only able to play four matches in the Clermont jersey, to which he remained faithful during the fifteen years of his professional career.
His last appearance will therefore remain against Stade Français on April 30, for a success for the Auvergnats (29-26).
But that he will not have lived in its entirety, forced out in the first period before undergoing an operation due to a rupture of the tendon of the right biceps.
A final injury that forced him to end his career probably sooner than he had planned.
He was also a key player in the XV of France in the 2010s, in which he often shone, despite the decline of the Blues in the world order of rugby at this time.
With the Blues, Fofana played in six Six Nations Tournaments in 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2019. During his 48 selections, he scored fifteen tries, including a few individual exploits, such as the defeat (23 -13) against England in the 2013 Tournament. Served in front of the 22 meters of the Blues, Fofana had resisted no less than five tackle attempts before flattening in the in-goal of the XV de la Rose.
That year, the Blues of Philippe Saint-André, had nevertheless finished the Tournament in last place.
With ASM, the Parisian had more success: he was crowned French champion twice (2010, 2017), played in two finals (2015, 2019), won the European Challenge (2019) and played in three cup finals. of Europe (2013, 2015, 2017).
Victim of a ruptured left Achilles tendon in January 2017 which kept him away from the field for nine months, Fofana was again seriously injured at the end of the same year, in December, when he was diagnosed with a hernia. neck, an injury that could have paralyzed him for life.
These serious repeated injuries had precipitated the end of his international career even before the start of the 2019 World Cup in Japan for which he was selected.