“I will not leave PSG in a dead end”

The region of Ile de France, where Paris is located, is ready to help Paris Saint Germain to find a new stadium outside the capital once the club announced it was leaving the Parc des Princes due to its disagreement with the Paris City Council. “I will not leave PSG at a dead end. We must open all the possibilities for a stadium in the Ile de France,” said the president of the region, Valérie Pécresse, in a statement published this Saturday in the newspaper ‘Le Parisian’.

Pécresse advocates that possible locations for the future stadium will be studied in the regional departments located west of the capital, where the Parc des Princes is located: Hauts-de-Seine, Yvelines, Essone and Val d’ Oise.

Candidate for the President of France in the 2022 elections for the conservative party The Republicans (LR), Pécresse assured that he is “in favor” of the main football club in Paris continuing in its current stadium, which is leased from the City Council of Paris. city ​​between 2 and 2.5 million euros per year.

Qatari-owned PSG has been in talks with the City Council for some time to buy the stadium, with the aim of expanding its capacity, which with 48,600 seats falls short of the big European clubs. However, the City Council, run by a coalition of left-wing and environmental groups and led by socialist Anne Hidalgo, opposes the sale so as not to preserve the city’s heritage.

Hidalgo emphasized this rejection last Monday, in an interview with the Ouest France newspaper, in which he insisted on the council’s willingness to “study and accompany the changes of the Park”, but directly fixed it: “It is said I repeat it now and again. And for everyone: there will be no sale of the Parc des Princes”.

The mayor also expressed his anger at some “surprising” statements by PSG president Nasser al Khelaifi a year ago, in which he suggested that the city did not want to sell them the stadium because its Qatari owners are “Arabs.” A day later the municipal council voted against that sale. And a few days later, on Thursday, Al Khelaifi confirmed that they will leave the stadium, as he said in a statement on the sidelines of the UEFA Congress held in Paris. “It’s over. We’re leaving the Parc des Princes,” he said.

Clashes for more than a year

Clashes between both parties have been going on for more than a year. Al Khelaifi’s accusations aside, Hidalgo considered the 28 million offer the club would have made to take over the stadium “ridiculous”.

Finding an alternative to the Parc des Princes will not be easy, as PSG and the region will have to find enough space to build a large stadium with at least 60,000 seats, with public transport and parking spaces in a region, of Paris, with one of the highest population densities in Europe (12.3 million inhabitants).

In any case, a possible move will not be quick. Both parties are united by an emphyteusis rental, which means a long-term, low-rent contract in exchange for the tenant making improvements to the rental property. In the case of the Parc des Princes, the contract is for thirty years until the end of 2043 and PSG has made improvements of around 85 million euros since the commitment was signed in 2013.