Key figure in Pro B promotion, Bruno de l’Espinay to step down as Tours MB president
Apr 4, 2025
Lilian Bordron
Laurent Foirest heading to Tours: a return to National 1 aiming for Pro B
NM1 - Laurent Foirest is expected to join Tours Metropole Basket to succeed Cedric Heitz. The Indre-et-Loire club, seventh in NM1 Group A, aims to return to Pro B and is banking on the experience of the former Quimper and Boulogne-Levallois coach.
Photo Credit : Lilian Bordron
Laurent Foirest could return to coaching next season. According to Ouest-France, the former Quimper and Metropolitans 92 coach is in advanced talks with Tours Metropole Basket, a declared candidate for promotion to Pro B in the medium term.
Laurent Foirest heading for National 1 return with Tours
Without a club since leaving Metropolitans 92 in November 2023, Laurent Foirest is very close to returning to the courts. According to Ouest-France, the former French international wing (150 caps), who later became Vincent Collet’s assistant coach for the French national team, is in advanced talks with Tours Metropole Basket.
Relegated to National 1 in 2022 after a difficult season in Pro B, TMB, with one of the division’s largest budgets, finished seventh in Group A this season. Under Cedric Heitz, the Tours team nevertheless qualified for the playoffs and will face Challans, second in the regular season, in the quarter-finals.
Tours aims to return to Pro B
The Indre-et-Loire club’s objective is clear: return to Pro B in the short or medium term. To achieve this, management has chosen to rely on Laurent Foirest’s experience, a coach who knows well the demands of both National 1 and Pro B. However, he will have to work with a drastically reduced salary budget.
With Quimper, he led the Béliers to Pro B in 2017, then brought them to the verge of Elite in 2020 (second before COVID-19 interrupted championships) and reached a Pro B Leaders Cup final in 2021. After his notable stint at Quimper, Foirest tried his hand in Betclic ELITE with Metropolitans 92, but his adventure in Boulogne-Levallois was short-lived, ending in November 2023 during a season marked by off-court difficulties.
If signed, Laurent Foirest would return to NM1 – or Pro B in case of promotion – the championship where he started his head coaching career in 2015, replacing Hugues Occansey on UJAP’s bench. At Tours, he would succeed Cedric Heitz, who has been in charge since the 2022 relegation. The Mulhouse-born coach’s contract is ending… unless promotion is achieved, which would automatically trigger an additional year.
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