The tension between Paris SG and the Paris City Hall for the ownership of the Parc des Princes has been on the rise in recent weeks, putting a bigger question mark over the future home of the French capital’s main club.
The relationship between the Qatari leader of the PSG Nasser Al Khelaifi and the Mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo It is increasingly fractured after an exchange of accusations.
At the center of the controversy is the desire to Al Khelaifi for purchasing the 48,000-seat stadium from the city, but the local government, from the French Socialist Party, blocked this transaction for the last year.
A vote on the matter by the municipal council on February 6 was what angered the owners of PSG.
“We have wasted years wanting to buy the Park,” Al Khelaifi lamented angrily last week before the press, during the UEFA Congress in Paris. “It’s over, we want to leave the Parc des Princes,” he added.
Last month, in another rather off-color comment, he hinted that the refusal could have racist connotations: “Is it because we are Arabs?” he asked in the newspaper Le Parisien, and asked for “respect” from the mayor’s office.
There is a lot at stake for him PSG, which wants to imitate the model of other large European clubs by developing VIP experiences in the stadium and increasing its capacity to 60,000 seats.
This confrontation is due to the important role of public administrations in French sport, where even elite clubs do not own their own stadiums, quite the opposite of what happens in the United Kingdom or Germany, where private ownership is the rule. general.
PSG signed a 30-year lease for the Princes Park in 2013, two years after the club was bought by Qatari funds. In theory the club would be committed until 2043, unless there are clauses that allow them to break the contract.
For the city, the departure of PSG from the stadium would be a disaster, since the capital does not have another club capable of selling all the seats in the stadium. Princes Park, located in the 16th arrondissement west of Paris.
“We do not wish to continue dialogue with the PSG through the press,” declared on Sunday the Deputy Mayor of the Paris City Council, Emmanuel Grégoire.
“What we want is to go back to work and not make any more comments. PSG will never leave the Parc des Princes,” he added.
Sources close to the mayor reported weeks ago that Hidalgo initially accepted the sale of the Park for an adequate price, before negotiations failed.
An initial offer of €40 million ($43) from PSG was perceived as laughable, and Grégoire joked that the club valued the 1972 listed building less than the Argentine midfielder Leandro Paredes, who cost €47 million.
Most experts believe that this fight is a risky game both for PSG, which has no easy options if it wants to move from what has been its home since 1974, and for the city, which has a lot to lose if its prestigious tenant leaves the premises.
The club made it known that it was interested in purchasing the largest Stade de France, the national sports stadium located north of Paris, but decided not to submit a bid before the deadline in early January.
The French club has found an ally in Valerie Pecresse, president of the regional council of Ile-de-France, a right-wing politician whose rivalry with Hidalgo is also personal.
Pecresse publicly offered to find a new location for PSG in the region, something that Gregoire described, according to the BFM channel, as a “stab in the back.”
Pierre Rabadan, city councilor in charge of Sports, the Olympic and Paralympic Games, indicated last week that his door remained open, adding that there were “other options” for PSG beyond the purchase of the stadium.
One of them could be to extend the lease, but the city would have to authorize the expansion work of a building with great architectural value.
Another of them, to build a new stadium, “is 10 years” of work, indicated Rabadan.
Some fans showed their opinion on Saturday during PSG’s 3-1 victory against Lille, with chants and signs hostile to Hidalgo.
The city council announced on Tuesday that it had gone to court for homophobic chants during the match against Lille. The mayor herself will go individually to court for “public insults,” according to the city council statement.
Source: Ambito
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