PARIS-. The tension between Paris Saint Gremain (PSG) and the Paris city hall over the ownership of the Parc des Princes has escalated in recent weeks, multiplying doubts about the future home of the French capital’s main club.
The Qatari leader of PSG Nasser Al Khelaifi and the mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, were shown smiling together in the VIP box at the Parc des Princes in the past, but the relationship is now broken after a series of accusations.
At the center of the controversy is Al Khelaifi’s desire to buy the 48,000-seat stadium from the city, but the local government, from the French Socialist Party, has blocked this transaction for the last year.
A vote on the matter by the municipal council on February 6 was the last straw for 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.
In another acidic comment, last month 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 PSG, which wants to imitate the model of other major 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 the sport French, where even the elite clubs do not own their own courses, unlike in the United Kingdom or Germany, where private ownership is the general rule.
PSG signed a 30-year lease for the Parc des Princes 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.
“PSG will never leave the Park”
For the city, PSG’s departure from the stadium would be a disaster, since the capital does not have another club capable of selling out all the seats in the Parc des Princes, located in the 16th arrondissement west of Paris.
“We do not wish to continue dialogue with PSG through the press,” declared the deputy mayor of the Paris city hall, Emmanuel Grégoire, on Sunday.
“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 in the past that Hidalgo was initially in favor of selling the Park for an adequate price, before negotiations failed.
An initial offer of 40 million euros ($43 million) from PSG was perceived as derisory, and Grégoire joked that the club valued the listed 1972 building less than Argentine midfielder Leandro Paredes, who cost 47 million euros.
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 buying the larger Stade de France, the national sports stadium located north of Paris, but decided not to submit an offer before the deadline in early January.
No easy options
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 has 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 Sportsof the Olympic and Paralympic Games, indicated last week that its 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, Rabadan told reporters.
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: AFP
