Fabien Galthie has announced that he will quit as coach of Stade Francais at the end of the season.

"I don't know what I'm going to do but I can tell you I'm not going to coach for a while, I don't know for how long," Galthie, who took charge in 2004, told a press conference at the team's training ground.

After he took the coaching job a year after retiring as a player, the 39-year-old former France captain and scrum-half led the Paris-based club to the 2007 Top 14 title.

In 2005 they also finished as runners-up both domestically and in the Heineken Cup.

This season saw Stade Francais finish second in Group Three of the Heineken Cup to narrowly miss out on the quarter finals, and they currently lie third in their domestic championship, 14 points off leaders Clermont Auvergne with eight games remaining.

Galthie won 64 caps for France in a playing career that was mostly spent at US Colomiers but also included stints at Stade Francais and South African side Western Province

Reda Maher / Eurosport