Aerial view of the Stade Jean Bouin stadium (top) and the Parc des Princes stadium in Paris on July 14, 2018. Paris has everything — stunning architecture and arguably the best food and fashion in the world. But, the French capital lacks one essential element of a modern metropolis: it has no soccer rivalry. Despite Qatar-owned Paris Saint-Germain spending vast sums in recent years assembling a team featuring superstars like Lionel Messi, Neymar and Kylian Mbappe, and the club reaching this year”s Champion’s League semifinal, the city has never truly been a soccer crucible. AFP
Paris has everything — stunning architecture and arguably the best food and fashion in the world. But, the French capital lacks one essential element of a modern metropolis: it has no soccer rivalry.
Despite Qatar-owned Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) spending vast sums in recent years assembling a team that has featured superstars like Lionel Messi, Neymar and Kylian Mbappe, and the club reaching this season’s Champions League semifinals, the city has never truly been a soccer crucible.
Yet, the Paris region is probably the world’s hottest soccer talent factory.
Twenty-nine players from the greater Paris area went to the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, including 11 members of the France squad, which reached the final, with others representing the likes of Portugal, Cameroon, Tunisia, Senegal and Morocco.
But Paris, the biggest urban area in the European Union with a population over 12 million, has had only one club in France’s top division — PSG — since Racing Paris was relegated 35 years ago.
London has seven clubs in the Premier League, while Madrid, Milan, Rome, Barcelona and Athens all boast multiple top-tier teams.
That may be about to change thanks to one of the wealthiest families in the world.
Forbes Magazine notes that Bernard Arnault has spent most of the last five years jousting with Elon Musk for the title of the richest person on the planet.
The dip in the luxury goods business has seen him recently slip to merely the richest man in Europe, with an estimated fortune of around $190 billion.
The founder of LVMH, the luxury goods conglomerate that owns fashion brands like Dior, Louis Vuitton and champagne producer Moet & Chandon, has the money and the marketing muscle to move mountains.
Last November his family took a majority stake in a small club called Paris FC, with his eldest son Antoine — a soccer fan and former PSG season ticket holder — saying they wanted to turn it into a force to be reckoned with.
The family have linked up with former Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp in a bid to take Paris FC from second-tier Ligue 2 into France’s top division and eventually, it is hoped, to the Champions League.
“It is an ambitious project, but not an unrealistic one,” Arnault insisted, with the club’s logo, featuring the Eiffel Tower, on the wall behind him.
There is only one problem.
Average attendances at the club’s Stade Charlety home had been hovering around 3,000 until Paris FC began giving away free tickets. That is a long way off the 47,000 sell-out crowds at PSG.
And Charlety, an athletics arena, “is a stadium where you cannot create an atmosphere”, said Klopp, who is now Red Bull’s head of global soccer.
“It has been a long time since I watched a game from that far away,” he declared after watching his first match there.
But the Arnaults have plans. Next season the club will move to the Stade Jean Bouin, across the road from PSG’s home, the Parc des Princes, in the upmarket 16th arrondissement.
