The French champions, Racing 92, are angry that the club’s reputation has been tarnished by the media coverage of three of their players, including the New Zealand World Cup winner Dan Carter, failing drug tests after this year’s Top 14 final, where they had been given medical exemption to use a banned substance.

Carter, along with the former New Zealand wing Joe Rokocoko and the Argentina wing Juan Imhoff, were cleared by the French Rugby Federation this week after proving that the traces of corticosteroids found in their urine samples were down to their being granted therapeutic use exemptions for prescribed medication as they recovered from injuries.

“The term corticosteroid has strong emotional connotations because it can correspond to immoral and illegal conduct,” said Racing in a statement. “It also corresponds to legal conduct, justified by medical science.

“The utmost precaution should be applied when using it and when speaking about it. In the present case, the ignorance shown by those who dealt with the subject, the confusion, approximation and blatant mistakes published without reserve have severely damaged the image of the club and its members.

“Covering deviant medical practices is commendable, but to run such coverage for three days with headlines and photos implicating a club is reprehensible because of the negative perceptions that inevitably fall back on the club and its players.

“It is an attempt to exploit a banal piece of information. In ethical terms, what has happened is mind-boggling. What is left once the doubt has been lifted? What is left in a world where conspiracy theories become the only keys to understanding? What is left is doubt, disgrace and huge damage.”

Racing won the June final by overcoming Toulon whose owner, Mourad Boudjellal, is on the verge of selling the club he has bankrolled for the last decade, helping them rise from the lower tier in France to become three-times European Cup winners.

The film producer Gérard Barba and lawyer Lucien Simon are negotiating with Boudjellal – who said after the Champions Cup defeat to Saracens last weekend that it could be his last season in charge – in a deal reported to be worth £9m. Simon said he hoped the talks would be concluded “in a relatively short time”.