In our summer series on stadiums, we are today looking at the Parc des Princes. The legendary stadium of the Paris Saint-Germain football club, this large concrete building opened in 1972 is very close to the ring road, which goes around the capital. It can accommodate a little over forty-eight thousand spectators. Not enough for the club’s president, Nasser Al-Khelaïfi. He wants to buy the park to expand it, but the Paris City Hall, the current owner, refuses to sell it. A conflict with strategic, economic, but also highly symbolic stakes.
The chants of the Parisians resonate in the concrete enclosure. The fervent supporters cannot imagine PSG without the Parc des Princes, a collection of their precious memories, both happy and unhappy. Bastien Stisi, a fan from the very beginning:
“I have a lot, a lot, a lot of affection for this stadium that we barely see, which is really anchored in an urbanity to which we are all very attached. The Parc des Princes, I have the impression of having seen it from all angles. I am reassured by the fact that we remain the Parc. I am reassured that we are still called Parc des Princes and not Emirates Parc, I don’t know what. It is really a place that I love.”
However, the Qatari fund, the club’s main shareholder since 2011, is threatening to move PSG elsewhere. Last January, president Nasser Al-Khelaïfi told journalists:
“We know what we want, it’s over for us.”
It’s over for them: it’s buy or leave. You have to be an owner to carry out the stadium expansion project. A project involving twelve thousand more seats, which means better revenue on match nights.
Also readFootball: PSG “wants to move” from the Parc des Princes, new tensions with Paris City Hall
Arm wrestling with Anne Hidalgo
For her part, the mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, refuses to give up this precious land, in a district where the square meter is worth around ten thousand euros. Categorically, she rejects the sale of the capital’s heritage.
Which has the gift of revolting PSG supporters, notably the Ultra Paris collective. Last February, during a match against the Lille club, LOSC, they sang “ Hidalgo, resign! “. ” Without PSG, the Parc no longer has a prince “, reads one banner.
The dispute is insoluble, explains Guillaume Gouze, an economic consultant specializing in stadiums:
“From the beginning, in the strategy of the Qatar version of Paris Saint-Germain, there was this idea of taking control and possession of the Parc des Princes to make the stadium appear on its balance sheet, thus increasing the club’s valuation and on the other hand to exempt itself from public supervision in order to have the stadium.”
” What happens to the Parc des Princes without PSG? »
So PSG initially evaluated the possibility of moving to the Stade de France, used for the national team of the Blues. An option abandoned in January, decried by the supporters and not really economically judicious.
So the solution remains to build. But the land must be found: at least fifty hectares, less than twenty kilometers from Paris.
This upcoming departure also raises the question of the future of the Parc des Princes, continues Guillaume Gouze:
“What happens to the Parc des Princes without PSG? There is no longer a resident club, it comes back into the hands of the city of Paris, there are quite high maintenance costs. Is it destroyed to make something else? Does another club come and play there? If so, which one? This is the real public management problem that the city of Paris should be faced with.”
The supporters’ chants could in the future resonate in the suburbs. The question: will they be heard all the way to Paris, in other words, will PSG remain the club of the capital…
Also readFootball: “PSG will never leave the Parc des Princes”, according to Paris City Hall