The State is working on the future of the Stade de France beyond 2025

The services of Bercy are indeed in the process of drafting the specifications for a call for tenders for a new concession for the first quarter of 2023 with a selection in 2024, reported several sources close to the file to AFP.

Signed hastily between the two rounds of the 1995 presidential election, the concession contract awarded to a Vinci/Bouygues consortium, builders of the stadium, ends in July 2025. Until then, the largest enclosure in France will have rolled out its lawn at the Rugby World Cup, offered a new track to Olympic athletes, and hosted many concerts as soon as Metallica.

The recent remarks of the president of PSG Nasser Al-Khelaïfi, in bickering with the city of Paris on the Parc des Princes and showing interest in the SDF recalled that the future of the enclosure was in suspense.

Even if the idea that PSG play in Saint-Denis may seem unlikely.

In reality, the State has been racking its brains for several years now and piling up reports to find out how to best exploit this enclosure of 80.000 people which will also need a facelift, 25 years after being crowned world champion there. football the France team of Zidane and Deschamps.

cost less

In the background: the chosen model must cost less to the State.

Between the litigation, the compensation for the absence of a resident club paid for years, the various compensations as recently for the works of the RER B, the Stadium was expensive.

Some 778 million in public expenditure for the stadium and associated infrastructure, had calculated the Court of Auditors in 2018, requested by the Prime Minister at the time, Edouard Philippe. The latter had not then excluded the hypothesis of a sale and the Court recommended at the time that the future of the Stadium "be stopped at the latest during the year 2019".

In a report dedicated to the Olympic Games published last week, the Court of Auditors was thus moved that the case dragged on. And, faced with the hypothesis of a call for tenders in the spring of 2023, she judges that "this calendar is the most unfavorable for the State which, as in 1995, will find itself under pressure from both candidates and sports federations. ".

"I don't know if he will offer a concession model, a management model, a sales model", explained a few months ago the general manager of the consortium Alexandra Boutelier on Europe 1.

According to sources close to the executive, the hypothesis of a sale remains "weak".

"Start from scratch"

For their part, what are the Football (FFF) and Rugby (FFR) Federations going to do, which have often complained about their fate, judging for a time the cost too high for football or planning to go and build a stadium elsewhere to rugby ?

“The opportunity is given to start a little from scratch”, observes a source familiar with the matter, “rather than undergoing a dealer, they say to themselves + we must be interested in it +, + that we go see them before +, + that we integrate a concession +, etc”, we added from the same source.

On the community side, the idea is also to be invited to the table.

"I told the state that we wanted local authorities to be in the new concession and to have a place in governance," explained the PS mayor of Saint-Denis, Mathieu Hanotin, interviewed by AFP, who wants a stadium "more open to the city".

It will also be necessary for the new operator to commit "to a work program" so that the enclosure remains "attractive", explains a government source.

For now, work including lighting (LED) has been carried out, for an amount around 40 million on the bill for the Olympics.

Relations between the Stade de France and the organizing committee of the Games (Cojo) are also "tense", AFP learned from concordant sources.

The consortium finally refused to engage in the organization of the Olympic events themselves, returning the ball to the Cojo.

Another point of contention: the price to pay to compensate the consortium because of the period of immobilization because of the Olympic Games, longer than expected (works, etc.). Negotiations are underway, both on the amount and on its support - part could be by the State.