Villefranche

Villefranche-sur-Saône enters 2026–27 as a professional club, with the league above them becoming Ligue 3. Fabien Pujo is in charge, having followed Laurent Combarel, who held the job from 2024 to 2026.

They came close before. In 2021 and again in 2022 the Tigres Caladois finished third in National, and each time the promotion play-offs went against them, first to Niort, then to Quevilly-Rouen Métropole.

Their only season in the second tier came much earlier, in 1983–84, and it ended with the club last in Group A. Two years before, the Cercle Sportif de Villefranche football section, formed in 1919, had already become Football Club Villefranche, officially founded on 25 March 1927. The "Beaujolais" was added to the name in 1985, the year after that relegation.

Olympique Lyonnais sit close by, and the link is practical. Villefranche train at the Lyon academy, and players have come through on loan, among them Florent Sanchez Da Silva, a France Under-20 international. Nearer to home the rivalry is the Derby du Beaujolais, against GOAL FC and UF Belleville Saint-Jean.

Home is the Stade Armand Chouffet, which holds 3,500, of whom 1,532 sit under cover.