His contract with ASSE expired on June 30, 2021, but the Saint-Etienne club decided to part ways with their goalkeeper, Stéphane Ruffier. The divorce announcement was made public on Monday, January 4, by press release.
It’s officially the end of a ten-year affair, and a ten-month soap opera. In a press release dated Monday, January 4, 2021, AS Saint-Etienne announced that it had terminated the contract of its goalkeeper, Stéphane Ruffier. “ASSE regrets having come to this decision, made ineluctable by the attitude of the player who undermined the institution“, writes the management of the club. Arrived in the Loire in the summer of 2011, the Saint-Etienne doorman, aged 34, is no longer part of the workforce of the Greens as of day, told AFP, the club’s lawyer, Me Olivier Martin.
Epilogue after 10 months of tension
The soap opera on the theme of “I love you, me neither” begins on February 21, 2020. The coach of the Greens, Claude Puel, announces then wanting to spare Stéphane Ruffier, in decline since the beginning of the year. The Saint-Etienne goalkeeper is replaced by his usual understudy, Jessy Moulin, two days later, in the league against Reims.
This decision angered his agent, Patrick Glanz, who then attacked the technician very hard, believing that the latter “had spat on a legendIn response, the club’s management took legal action.
The confinement, the end of the championship will in no way alleviate the situation between the goalkeeper and the Saint-Etienne club. The tea towel burns when Stéphane Ruffier is the subject of two layoffs. At the end of July, the goalkeeper of the Greens arrives late for training: first layoff for “act of insubordination“. November 19, Stéphane Ruffier leaves an individual session prematurely. Same sanction.
For this 2020-2021 season, Claude Puel announced that Ruffier would not be integrated into the trio of goalkeepers of the professional workforce, made up of Moulin, Stefan Bagic and Étienne Green. The choice is confirmed on October 16, when the general manager of the club affirms that the Basque would have informed him of his refusal to be the lining of Moulin, named goalkeeper n ° 1. Stéphane Ruffier denies, through his lawyer, claiming that he has never been offered the role of second.
383 Ligue 1 matches in green
Stéphane Ruffier is, to date, the goalkeeper who has played the most with the Greens in Ligue 1 (383 matches), ahead of the legendary Ivan Curkovic. He clearly contributed to the rebirth of the Greens who have participated several times, since 2011 and the arrival of Ruffier in goals, in the Europa League and won the League Cup in 2013 (the club’s first trophy since 1981, date of last of his ten French championship titles).
The person concerned, benefited from one of the highest salaries of ASSE (approximately 2.8 million euros annually), and his contract with ASSE expired on June 30, 2021. Summoned on December 2 for an interview prior to a possible sanction, the conciliation meetings which followed were unsuccessful. The departure of the guard should relieve the payroll of the workforce and could help facilitate operations to adjust the winter transfer window, pending a probable procedure at the Prud’hommes.