Beziers

Avenir Sportif Beziers is a French association football club founded in 2007 by the merger of AS Saint-Chinian, FC Beziers Mediterranee, and the Beziers-Mediterranee Football Cheminots. They are based in the town of Beziers and their home stadium is the Stade de Sauclieres.

The idea to merge the three football teams in order to have a championship team came in 2006, but a Championnat de France amateur (CFA) team was not created until 2007. Beziers won promotion to professional football in 2017–18 for the first time, and played in Ligue 2 for one season. As of the 2020–21 season it plays in Championnat National 2, after two consecutive relegations.

History

Since 2006, a fusion project between the three biterrois clubs, the Avenir Sportif Saint-Chinian, the Football Club Beziers Mediterranee and the Beziers-Mediterranee Football Cheminots, is pushed back by diverse administrative issues. One of the issues, seemingly minor, was the choice of the colors of the new club. while Avenir Sportif Saint-Chinian rooted for yellow and black, the two other clubs wished to see the club adorn the red and blue, the colors of the city of Beziers.

In 2007, the three clubs reached a settlement, and fused into the AS Beziers. ASB then took part in the CFA 2, with a division coming from the former club of AS Saint-Chinian, the best ranked of the three clubs before the fusion. However this first season was devoted to sportive and administrative amelioration, and the club was relegated in the honor division of their league at the end of the season.

At the end of the following year, ASB was back in the CFA 2, and was the first of its group securing promotion only two years after being relegated in regional elite, earning the title of champions of the CFA 2. In its first season in the CFA, AS Beziers went up and down and was nearly relegated before being reinstated due to the high number of administrative relegations in other clubs.

In the three following seasons, the club held its ground in the