While PSG submits its candidacy for the takeover of the Stade de France from 2025 on Thursday, the move is far from achieving consensus among supporters.
They are still discreet, but the first graffiti appeared on the trash cans and bus shelters around the stadium, with a slogan: “PSG is at the Park”. Paris Saint-Germain, future owner of the Stade de France? The road is still long, but the process begins Thursday, April 27. The Parisian club, in conflict with the town hall of Paris which refuses to sell him the Parc des Princes, is a candidate to settle in the enclosure of Saint-Denis. I’Etat, which owns the Stade de France, is looking for a new buyer or a new concessionaire from 2025. The price of the sports arena is estimated at 600 million euros.
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After the announcement of PSG’s candidacy, the supporters, mostly opposed to the move, are rather upset. “The Parc des Princes is the emblematic stadium of Parisone of them whispers. It’s the house, it’s the Park, it’s the atmosphere, the atmosphere, gets carried away Liam, who sees his team nowhere else than at the Parc des Princes. The Stade de France is not a football stadium!”
A gauge reduced to 70,000 places
The management of PSG is aware of this. An email was therefore sent this week to all subscribers to take the pulse and specify, among other scenarios, its intentions for the Stade de France: a complete renovation, stands closer to the field, a reworked roof and a gauge reduced to 70,000 places.
>> Passage to 60,000 places, financial costs… Can the Paris town hall and the leaders of PSG find common ground to enlarge the Parc des Princes?
These announcements did not change Pierrick’s mind, a Parc des Princes subscriber for 15 years and opposed to the move. “It’s the soul. There, I leave the shop to make gifts, I see Parc des Princes t-shirts, there is the Eiffel Tower, the Parc des Princes with the latitude, the longitude.. I lived titles, the farewells of Pauleta, the extension of Mbappé. When I enter the stadium, I get shivers because my father took me there when I was two years old and I never left… It’s legendary!”
Buying the Stade de France will be, whatever happens, a complicated operation for PSG. And convincing his supporters is probably even more so.