The manager and historic trainer of the Montpellier handball club Patrice Canayer, at the helm of the club since 1994, has made the decision to leave the MHB at the end of his contract in June 2024, President Julien Deljarry said on Monday.
“I took note with great emotion of Patrice Canayer’s decision not to extend his contract in June 2024, a decision that I respect. The shareholders join me in thanking and congratulating Patrice for all of the 30 exceptional years he has given for the club,” he announced in a press release on the club’s website.
Patrice Canayer, 62, will therefore assume his duties at the head of the team engaged in the Champions League until the end of the season.
“It is a real pride to have evolved, and this for another season, alongside the man who brought 42 titles to the club, including two Champions Leagues”, also declared President Deljarry in the press release.
For nearly 30 years, Canayer was the architect of MHB, the most successful club in French handball with two Champions League titles and fourteen French championship titles. In 2003, the MHB won their first European title against the Spanish club Pamplona, before doing it again in 2018 against Nantes.
Arrived in 1994 from PSG, where he had started his coaching career, this sports teacher from Nîmes shaped the MHB with his iron fist, his standards and a fierce ambition to reign over French handball until 2012 and the betting affair, a turning point in the club’s history. Several players, including brothers Nikola and Luka Karabatic, had been convicted in this case of rigged sports betting.
Canayer, who began a political career alongside the President of the Region Carole Delga, is therefore preparing for the moment to begin his last season at the head of the Montpellier team in the coming days.