The 2014–15 RC Lens season was the 109th professional season of the club since its creation in 1906. Lens returned to

Ligue 1 Ligue 1 (; ), officially known as Ligue 1 McDonald's France, McDonald's for sponsorship reasons, is a professional association football league in France and the highest level of the French football league system. Administered by the Ligue de ...

after a three-year span in the second division. After their promotion however Lens were considered ineligible for their promotion due to a €10 million payment from shareholder Hafiz Mammadov missing in the accounts. This meant that despite their successes in the previous season, Lens would return to

Ligue 2 Ligue 2 (, League 2), also known as Ligue 2 BKT due to sponsorship reasons, is a French professional football league. The league serves as the second division of French football and is one of two divisions making up the Ligue de Football Prof ...

no matter where they finished in the league. Despite their automatic demotion, the club happened to finish the season in 20th which nevertheless warranted relegation. The club's stadium

Stade Bollaert-Delelis The Stade Bollaert-Delelis () is the main football stadium in Lens, France, that was built in 1933. It is the home of RC Lens. The stadium's capacity is 38,223 – about 7,000 more than the city's population. The stadium was originally named af ...

was under renovation for the entirety of the season, ahead of the

UEFA Euro 2016 The 2016 UEFA European Football Championship, commonly referred to as UEFA Euro 2016 (stylised as UEFA EURO 2016) or simply Euro 2016, was the 15th UEFA European Championship, the quadrennial international men's association football, football ch ...

tournament in France. Lens instead played the majority of their matches at

Stade de la Licorne Stade de la Licorne () is a multi-use stadium in Amiens, France. It is currently used mostly for football matches and is the home stadium of Amiens SC. The stadium is able to hold 12,097 people and was built in 1999. The first match held in the ...

Amiens Amiens (English: or ; ; , or ) is a city and Communes of France, commune in northern France, located north of Paris and south-west of Lille. It is the capital of the Somme (department), Somme Departments of France, department in the region ...

and played four matches against higher-profile league teams at the French national stadium

Stade de France Stade de France (, ) is the national stadium of France, located just north of Paris in the commune of Saint-Denis, Seine-Saint-Denis, Saint-Denis. Its seating capacity of 80,698 makes it the List of football stadiums in France, largest stadium i ...

in Saint-Denis.

Players

First team squad

French teams are limited to four players without EU citizenship. Hence, the squad list includes only the principal nationality of each player; several non-European players on the squad have dual citizenship with an EU country. Also, players from the

ACP countries The Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (OACPS, French: ''Organisation des États d'Afrique, des Caraïbes et du Pacifique'') is a group of countries in Africa, the Caribbean, and the Pacific that was created by the Georget ...

—countries in Africa, the

Caribbean The Caribbean ( , ; ; ; ) is a region in the middle of the Americas centered around the Caribbean Sea in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, mostly overlapping with the West Indies. Bordered by North America to the north, Central America ...

, and the

Pacific The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is bounded by the cont ...

that are signatories to the

Cotonou Agreement The Cotonou Agreement (French: ''Accord de Cotonou'') is a treaty between the European Union (EU) and the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States ("ACP countries"). It was signed in June 2000 in Cotonou, Benin's largest city, by 78 ACP c ...

—are not counted against non-EU quotas due to the

Kolpak ruling The ''Kolpak'' ruling is a European Court of Justice ruling handed down on 8 May 2003 in favour of Maroš Kolpak, a Slovak handball player. It declared that citizens of countries which have signed European Union Association Agreements have ...

. (on loan from Stade Rennes)

Competitions

Ligue 1

League table

Results summary

Results by round

Matches

Coupe de la Ligue

Coupe de France

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:2014-15 RC Lens season

Lens A lens is a transmissive optical device that focuses or disperses a light beam by means of refraction. A simple lens consists of a single piece of transparent material, while a compound lens consists of several simple lenses (''elements'') ...

RC Lens seasons