Bayonne

In 2004 Bayonne, an amateur-level side from the Basque country, reached the last 16 of the Coupe de France and were knocked out by Paris Saint-Germain. That year they also won the Championnat de France Amateur (CFA), a year after taking the CFA2 below it. From 2004 to 2012 they played in the Championnat National, the third tier. They won the CFA again in 2008.

The Stade Didier Deschamps opened in 2000 with room for 3,500. Deschamps came through the club's youth system between 1976 and 1983, and he later won the World Cup as a player in 1998 and as a manager in 2018. Two other academy products went on to top-level careers: Stéphane Ruffier, who was in the youth ranks from 1992 to 2002 and returned on loan in 2005–06, and Aymeric Laporte, who spent 2009–10 there.

Their nearest rivals are Les Genêts d'Anglet, and the meeting between the two is billed as the Basque Derby. The nickname, Txuri-Urdin, is Basque for white and blue, though the shirts are officially sky blue and white.

Bayonne go into 2025–26 in National 2 after winning promotion. In September 2025 the president, Karim Fradin, stepped down to become Football Director, and Santiago Cucci took over the presidency.

The football club was never meant to stand alone. It opened on 12 November 1935 as a section of Aviron Bayonnais, a multi-sport society dating from 1904. In 1946 it merged with local parish clubs to form Entente Sportive Bayonnaise. In August 1952 it took the football side back and kept the name Aviron Bayonnais.