Football Stadium
The current Parc des Princes, designed by architect Roger Taillibert and built by Bouygues, was opened in June 1972 and is a true football and rugby stadium with no track around the pitch. It is currently the home of football team Paris Saint-Germain while the rugby union club Stade Français competes across the road at the much smaller Stade Jean Bouin, but sometimes uses the Parc des Princes (although in recent years the club has used Stade de France as its secondary home).
There have been two previous stadia on the site, which opened in 1897 and 1932, respectively. Both were essentially velodromes, and for many years (1904–1967) the stadium was the traditional finishing point for the Tour de France cycling race. Taillibert's all-seater design has proven in retrospect to be well ahead of its time, requiring only cosmetic improvements to meet vastly increased comfort and safety regulations through the 1990s and early 2000s (decade).
On 10 November 1973, Paris SG held their first match at the Parc des Princes during a Division 2 match against Red Star Saint-Ouen. The capital club won the match 3–1. The following year, PSG left the Stade Georges Lefèvre and became Le Parc's sole tenant. The club had to play a few games at the Stade Olympique Yves-du-Manoir in Colombes (once in 1974–75) and the Stade de Paris (once in 1977–1978 and twice in 1978–79) because Le Parc was unavailable due to work on the lawn.
Racing Club de Paris played their home matches at the Parc des Princes from 1984 to 1990. In 1992, after the club was bought by Canal +, the TV channel took control of the SESE, company which holded the concession to the Parc des Princes since June 1988. The club now paid their rent to Canal +. On 28 June 1999, the City of Paris extended the concession from the Parc des Princes for another 15 years. On 18 February 2002, PSG fully appropriates the stadium and the headquarters of the club are moved to a new building. After the club was sold by Canal + to a consortium comprising American investment company Colony Capital, French investment company, Butler Capital Partners, and American investment bank, Morgan Stanley on 11 April 2006, the City of Paris extended the concession until 2014.
Having acquired PSG in 2006, the international real estate investment firm Colony Capital announced a plan to upgrade the Parc des Princes, including the building of luxury amenities and a capacity expansion to 54,000. However, the dismal performance of the club after the takeover have caused this plan to be put on hold. On 16 September 2009, the mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoë, made official in a communiqué the will of the city to organise the UEFA Euro 2016 in Paris Saint-Germain's stadium, the Parc des Princes, which will be renovated. Delanoë has committed himself to "submit the Council of Paris (the municipal assembly), before New Year's Eve, to a deliberation that allows to carry out the modernisation of the Parc des Princes, following the UEFA rules, before 2016". The mayor "reaffirms his total determination to make out of the renovated Parc des Princes an advantage for France's candidature" in order to organize the competition.
Since the construction of the Stade de France in 1998, that stadium has not enjoyed a regular tenant and there have been repeated attempts to convince a professional football or rugby team to move to there. Although occupancy was offered to PSG, the capital club remained at Parc des Princes under pressure from Canal +, its former parent company, and the Paris city government.
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Famous quotes containing the words football and/or stadium:
“People stress the violence. That’s the smallest part of it. Football is brutal only from a distance. In the middle of it there’s a calm, a tranquility. The players accept pain. There’s a sense of order even at the end of a running play with bodies stewn everywhere. When the systems interlock, there’s a satisfaction to the game that can’t be duplicated. There’s a harmony.”
—Don Delillo (b. 1926)
“The final upshot of thinking is the exercise of volition, and of this thought no longer forms a part; but belief is only a stadium of mental action, an effect upon our nature due to thought, which will influence future thinking.”
—Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914)