Fontaine will join Kopa at the beginning of October at Delaune

A few meters from the statue of Raymond Kopa, the location is already ready. A bronze in the image of Just Fontaine, illustrious striker of the Reims club and the French team who died on March 1, 2023, will join the “Napoleon of football” on the forecourt of the Delaune stadium, near the entrance to the Germain stand. Two “monuments” of French football will thus be brought together a few meters from the pitch they have trodden on so many times.

The statue of this second legend will be inaugurated on the occasion of the Reims-Montpellier match, scheduled for Sunday, October 6. It will take place a few days earlier.

Participatory sponsorship is still open until the end of 2024

The total cost of this work amounts to €200,000, to which is added €88,000 for the development of the site and the lighting. “Thanks to the generosity of more than 100 contributors, nearly €44,000 in donations had already been collected by mid-summer,” says the City of Reims. The participatory patronage is still open until the end of 2024.

Made of bronze, it is the work of the Châlons artist Juan Carlos Carrillo. After having been made in public for a time in the spring, passage Talleyrand, it went to the foundry this summer to be finalized.

The famous scorer represented “in the moment”

The statue will show the iconic player “in the swing of things,” Juan Carlos Carrillo said when he presented his model. “He almost describes a flight with his arms spread diagonally and the goal will be reached in a few fractions of a second.”

The sculptor chose to represent “the moment that will precede the victory, but especially the crowning of the efforts and victories that preceded it.” The work is “faithful to the features and physical constitution of Just Fontaine. The ball at his feet is worked in a modern, even futuristic way. Made up of thirteen intertwining rings, symbolizing the thirteen goals of the World Cup, we can guess the terrestrial globe, an ideal metaphor to represent his records, but also the path traveled from Morocco to France.”