The French receive complaint from lots of clubs (7)
I believe the answer is:
leagues
'lots of clubs' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both groups as well as being plural nouns.
Perhaps you can see a link between them that I don't see?
'the french receive complaint' is the wordplay.
'the french' becomes 'les' (plural form of 'the' in French).
'receive' indicates putting letters inside.
'complaint' becomes 'ague' (ague is a kind of health problem).
'les' placed around 'ague' is 'LEAGUES'.
'from' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for leagues that I've seen before include "measures" , "Groups" , "Unions" , "Alliance" , "Old units of length" .)