PSG line up for the Stade de France

While negotiations with the City of Paris for a possible takeover of the Parc des Princes, the club's historic stadium, are at a standstill, PSG is therefore positioning itself as a potential buyer of the Saint-Denis enclosure, equipped with 80.000 places and whose price is estimated at "647 million euros", according to the state accounts established in 2021.

The State published on March 7 the two calls for tenders: one for the transfer, the other for a new concession, with the date of delivery of the "folds" on April 27 at 12:00 p.m., according to the documents consulted by the AFP.

The offers submitted, both for the transfer and for a concession, will be studied in 2024, for a probable award in 2025. Since 1995, it has been a consortium made up of the two French construction giants Vinci and Bouygues (respectively 2/3 and 1 /3) which operates the stadium created for the 1998 FIFA World Cup.

This position of PSG comes in a context of tension between the club of the capital and the City of Paris about the Parc des Princes.

PSG says it wants to undertake expansion and renovation work on the Porte de Saint-Cloud enclosure, estimated at 500 million euros, in order to increase its capacity from 47.000 to 58.000 seats. In the eyes of the Qatari owners of the club, this work would only be possible if PSG became the buyer of the Park, but they are currently facing an end of inadmissibility from the Paris City Hall.

Three options

Last fall, the president of PSG Nasser Al-Khelaïfi had thus expressed his dissatisfaction with the negotiations with the City of Paris. The mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, replied on January 15, indicating that the Parc des Princes was "not for sale".

"If ever this does not move forward with the Paris City Hall, we are preparing for other options," said an internal source at PSG, adding that discussions on the Parc des Princes with Anne Hidalgo had not progressed. Contacted by AFP, the Paris City Hall did not want to react immediately to PSG's interest in the Stade de France.

The capital club has since commissioned the company Legends to conduct a market study on the various possibilities for settling this thorny stadium issue.

The purchase of the Park remains the number 1 option. The second is the acquisition of the Stade de France, by responding to the call for applications launched by the State, then by carrying out work to make it "a real football stadium ". The last is the construction of a new stadium, either close to Paris or further west of Paris, towards Poissy, where the next PSG training center is located. PSG is also considering the Hippodrome de Saint-Cloud.

In the event of a possible takeover of the Stade de France, PSG should however coexist with other players. Among the obligations incumbent on the purchaser, according to the published call for tenders, is the priority reception "for a period of 25 years" of the meetings organized by the French Rugby Federation and the French Football Federation or the organization of other major international events (European football or rugby cup finals, European football championships, football and rugby world cup).

He will also have to "carry out a minimum base of work" in particular at the level of "ticketing", "door access control", public information at the door level" and "video surveillance storage".

The Stade de France was the scene of an organizational fiasco for the Champions League final at the end of May 2022 between Liverpool and Real Madrid.