Operation of the Stade de France: the State enters into exclusive negotiations with GL Events

The State has entered into exclusive negotiations with the events group GL Events to operate the Stade de France from the summer of 2025 and for the next thirty years, we learned on Tuesday from sources close to the negotiations.

The State, owner of the compound located in Saint-Denis, launched a procedure in March 2023 to reallocate the current concession held by the Vinci/Bouygues consortium since 1995. There were only two in the running, the real estate consortium and GL Events. It is only at the end of these discussions that the allocation will be officially decided.

The new concession contract must be signed in April 2025. After months of discussions, the State has therefore chosen to exclude the historic consortium of the Stade de France Vinci/Bouygues, whose operation of the enclosure built in a time record for the 1998 World Cup had been granted between the two rounds of the 1995 presidential election.

The consortium’s promises of work worth 400 million euros to renovate the equipment, according to a source with knowledge of the matter, were not a priori enough to convince the State.

“The rugby federation does not want to hear about Vinci-Bouygues and wants it to be GL Events,” this source indicated several days ago.

The specifications require that the stadium can accommodate the French football and rugby teams, who play some nine matches there per year, as well as “major international sporting events”.

The enclosure would have cost some 700 million euros of public funds since 1995.

GL Events, which was supported in the design of the offer by Paris Entertainment Compagny (the former SAE POPB operating company, majority owned by the city of Paris), plans less investments than those envisaged by the defeated candidate, according to this same source. “In the GL Events project, there is a desire to revitalize the area by bringing in numerous businesses,” said a source with knowledge of the negotiations.

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