The
Parc des Princes is a
stadiumA modern stadium is a place, or venue, for outdoor sports, concerts or other events, consisting of a field or stage partly or completely surrounded by a structure designed to allow spectators to stand or sit and view the event.-History of the stadium:The word originates from the Greek word...
located in the
16th arrondissementThe 16th arrondissement of Paris is one of the 20 arrondissements of Paris, the capital city of France.Situated on the right bank of the River Seine, this arrondissement – which includes the mainly residential districts of Auteuil and Passy – is home to a large number of diplomatic...
of
ParisParis is the capital of France and the country's most populous city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
,
FranceFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
, currently the home of
footballAssociation football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of eleven players using a spherical ball...
team Paris Saint-Germain (PSG), with a seating capacity of 48,712. Originally a
velodromeA velodrome is an arena for track cycling. Modern velodromes feature steeply banked oval tracks, consisting of two 180-degree circular bends connected by two straights...
, it was the finish of the
Tour de FranceThe Tour de France is an annual bicycle race that covers approximately throughout France and bordering countries. The race lasts three weeks and attracts cyclists from around the world. The race is broken into day-long segments, called stages. Individual times to finish each stage are totalled to...
from the first event in 1903 until the track's demolition in the late 1960s. It was also previously the
national stadiumA national stadium is a stadium, may serve to provide a strong national image to the world.
until the
Stade de FranceThe Stade de France is the national stadium of France, situated in the Paris suburb of Saint-Denis. It has an all-seater capacity of 81,338 and is used for the French rugby union team during the Six Nations and other major internationals...
was built for the
1998 FIFA World CupThe 1998 FIFA World Cup, the 16th FIFA World Cup, was held in France from 10 June to 12 July 1998. France was chosen as hosts by FIFA on 1 July 1992. The tournament was won by France, who beat Brazil 3-0 in the final...
. The Parc des Princes stadium and grounds are owned by the City of Paris. The name
Parc des Princes ("Princes' Park") was given to the surrounding area during the 18th century, when it was a forest used by the royal family for
huntingHunting is the practice of pursuing living animals for food, recreation, or trade. In present-day use, the term refers to lawful hunting, as distinguished from poaching, which is the killing, trapping or capture of the hunted species contrary to applicable law...
.
The stadium is served by two stations on the
Paris MétroThe Paris Métro or Métropolitain is the rapid transit system in Paris. It is a symbol of the city, notable for its station architecture, influenced by Art Nouveau. It has 16 lines, mostly underground, and a total length of 214 km . There are 300 stations...
:
Porte de Saint-CloudParis Métro Line 9 is one of 16 metro lines in Paris, France. The line links Pont de Sèvres in Boulogne in the west with Montreuil in the east. It is the fourth busiest line on the network....
and
Porte d'AuteuilParis Métro Line 10 is one of 16 metro lines in Paris, France. The line links the Pont de Saint Cloud in Boulogne in the west with the Gare d'Austerlitz. It has the least traffic of any of the 14 main metro lines ....
.
Officially opened on 4 June 1972, the Parc des Princes has always been somewhat ahead of its time. As a result, while the rest of France launches itself into a programme of stadium renovations, the ground based in Porte de Saint-Cloud still stands up well to current standards. It was also home to the French national team until the Stade de France arrived on the scene.
It was conceived by architect
Roger TaillibertRoger Taillibert is a French architect, notable for designing the Parc des Princes in Paris and the Olympic Stadium in Montreal, Canada....
and is built from concrete. It is capable of seating 48,712. Its average attendance for this term has been 43,000. It also hosts concerts on various occasions.
Velodrome
In one corner of the 19th-century Parc des Princes was a laboratory. That was demolished in 1897 and the site became a sports stadium. It was so quickly and badly built that spectators were denied access to the stands when it opened on July 18. There were fears that the stands would give way under the weight of spectators.
The track, managed by
Henri DesgrangeHenri Desgrange was a French bicycle racer and sports journalist. He set 12 world track cycling records, including the hour record of 35.325 kilometres on 11 May 1893. He was the first organiser of the Tour de France....
, who in 1903 founded the
Tour de FranceThe Tour de France is an annual bicycle race that covers approximately throughout France and bordering countries. The race lasts three weeks and attracts cyclists from around the world. The race is broken into day-long segments, called stages. Individual times to finish each stage are totalled to...
, was 666 metres round, egg-shaped and almost without banking. The cycle track was the main feature but the size of the inner field meant other sports could be held there and, as Paris's main sports stadium, it accommodated the
Olympic GamesThe Olympic Games are a major international event of summer and winter sports, in which thousands of athletes compete in a wide variety of events. The Games are currently held every two years, with Summer and Winter Olympic Games alternating. Originally, the ancient Olympic Games were held in...
in 1924. By then the seating had expanded to 20,000 places. Desgrange and his successor,
Jacques GoddetJacques Goddet was a French sports journalist and director of the Tour de France from 1936 to 1986....
, then expanded capacity to 40,000. In fact there were 46,000 for the opening and the two were disciplined by the city authorities for overcrowding. At the same time, the track was reduced to 454 metres, given parallel straights and steeper bankings.
The second Parc des Princes hosted the final of the
inauguralThe first Rugby League World Cup was held in France in 1954. The prime motivators behind the idea of holding rugby league world cup were the French, who were short of money following the seizing of their assets by the rugby union in World War II....
Rugby League World CupThe Rugby League World Cup is an international rugby league football competition contested by the men's national teams of the member nations of the Rugby League International Federation , the sport's global governing body....
in 1954, when
Great BritainThe Great Britain national rugby league team is the national team of the United Kingdom in rugby league. The team is administered by the Rugby Football League , and is nicknamed "The Lions" or "Great Britain Lions"...
defeated
FranceThe France national rugby league team represent France in international rugby league tournaments. They are also sometimes referred to as "Les Tricolores" or more commonly "Les Chanteclairs"...
16–12.
The last man to win a race on the track was
Raymond PoulidorRaymond Poulidor , is a former professional bicycle racer. He was known as the eternal second, because he finished the Tour de France in second place three times, and in third place five times, including his final Tour at the age of 40...
, when he won the last stage of the 1967 Tour de France.
Roger PingeonRoger Pingeon is a retired professional road bicycle racer from France. He raced as a professional from 1964 to 1974. In 1967, Pingeon won the Tour de France...
, the overall Tour winner, accepted his yellow jersey in a stadium in which demolition had already started.
Demolition
The cycle track was demolished to make room for a bypass, the
PériphériqueBoulevard Péripherique is a ring road around Paris. It is a frequently congested stretch of 4- to 8-lane dual carriageway, and is one of the busiest freeway/motorways in Europe, with traffic between 1.1 and 1.2 million vehicles per day in 2002....
, to be built around Paris. Keeping the road to a straight line took it under one end of the track. Two of the Parc's four stands were demolished, and the rest stayed up for another two years before neglect meant they too had to come down.
Jacques Goddet, who had taken ownership of the track on the death of Henri Desgrange, fought the demolition order. He said:
- "That the administration of the city, with an especially motivated sports advisor, should want to interrupt the activities of the company running the Parc - my company - demands explanations. We had been model partners going right back to the previous century, having the most courteous, the most straightforward dealings with the administration of the city of Paris, which owned our land from its beginnings. We were its tenants and therefore we had a lease. It had all the clauses that any lease would have, right down to rights to raise the rent, terms for extension of the period of lease… As tenants, paying rent, we were therefore entitled to our rights, which were that when the time came to eject us, there was a duty, without discussion, to pay us the costs of the ending of the lease. Those would have been considerable sums, because our little Parc, its buildings and installations, just 32 years old, and its pretty pink track were in excellent state and produced a good income.
- "We found out that what the city of Paris had told us was a lease - something that nobody denied - wasn't one! What had been called a lease, treated as a lease, was just an error of description on the part of the city of Paris. Since 1898! And we who thought we were tenants, with all the rights of tenants, rights that until then had always been respected, suddenly found that under the law we were common concessionaires, people who could be shown the door without any legal discussion and without any damages."
A lawyer had found that the hiring agreement in the 19th century included a clause that children of a local school were allowed free use of the stadium on Thursday afternoons. The city of Paris claimed no tenancy agreement would include such a condition. A tenant had exclusive use of what he rented. Therefore Goddet had just a concession to use the land and could be evicted without compensation.
Goddet took the argument to appeal but failed. The velodrome became rubble to form the foundations of a soccer stadium. The track's shareholders received nothing in damages.
The Football Stadium
The current Parc des Princes, designed by
architectAn architect is trained and licensed in planning and designing buildings, and participates in supervising the construction of a building. Etymologically, architect derives from the Latin architectus, itself derived from the Greek arkhitekton , i.e. chief builder...
Roger TaillibertRoger Taillibert is a French architect, notable for designing the Parc des Princes in Paris and the Olympic Stadium in Montreal, Canada....
and built by
BouyguesBouygues is a French industrial group listed on Euronext Paris exchange and is a blue chip in the CAC 40 stock market index. The company was founded in 1952 by Francis Bouygues and since 1989 has been led by his son Martin Bouygues. In 2008 it had over 145,150 employees in 80 countries...
, was opened in June 1972 and is a true football/rugby stadium with no track around the pitch. There have been two previous stadia on the site, which opened in 1897 and 1932, respectively. Both were essentially
velodromeA velodrome is an arena for track cycling. Modern velodromes feature steeply banked oval tracks, consisting of two 180-degree circular bends connected by two straights...
s, and for many years (1904–1967) the stadium was the traditional finishing point for the
Tour de FranceThe Tour de France is an annual bicycle race that covers approximately throughout France and bordering countries. The race lasts three weeks and attracts cyclists from around the world. The race is broken into day-long segments, called stages. Individual times to finish each stage are totalled to...
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. Having acquired PSG on April 10, 2006, the international real estate investment firm
Colony CapitalColony Capital is a private, international investment firm based in Los Angeles, California. The company, founded in 1991, has offices around the world. The company focuses on real estate opportunities around the world either on its own, through funds run by the company, or in joint ventures...
has 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 PSG since the takeover have caused this plan to be put on hold. Whether the proposed expansion has the approval of the
ParisParis is the capital of France and the country's most populous city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
city council is unclear as of late 2007.
The football club
Racing Club de ParisRacing Club de France is a football club based in the north-west suburb of Paris. The team generally competes in the Championnat de France Amateurs, which is the fourth tier of the French football league system....
played its home games at the Parc des Princes from 1984 to 1990. The rugby union club
Stade FrançaisStade Français CASG is a French professional rugby union club based in the 16th arrondissement of Paris...
competes across the road at the much smaller Stade Jean Bouin, but sometimes uses the Parc des Princes.
In September 16, 2009, the
mayor"Mayor" is a modern title used in many countries for the highest ranking officer in a municipal government....
of
ParisParis is the capital of France and the country's most populous city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
,
Bertrand DelanoëBertrand Delanoë is a French politician, and has been the mayor of Paris since 2001. He is from the Socialist Party . He is considered to be a potential candidate for President of the French Republic in 2012....
, made official in a communiqué the will of the city to organize the
UEFA Euro 2016The 2016 UEFA European Football Championship, commonly referred to as Euro 2016, will be the 15th European Championship for national football teams sanctioned by UEFA. It will be held in the summer of 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 years eve, to a deliberation that allows to carry out the modernization 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
FranceFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
's candidature" in order to organize the competition.
As the
Stade de FranceThe Stade de France is the national stadium of France, situated in the Paris suburb of Saint-Denis. It has an all-seater capacity of 81,338 and is used for the French rugby union team during the Six Nations and other major internationals...
has no regular tenant, there have been repeated attempts to convince a professional football or rugby team to move to the stadium. Although it was offered to PSG, the capital club remained at Parc des Princes under pressure from its former parent company (pay-TV network Canal Plus) and the Paris city government.
Kop of Boulogne
The
Kop of Boulogne (KOB) is an area in the Parc des Princes which houses supporters groups associated with the
FrenchFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
footballAssociation football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of eleven players using a spherical ball...
clubA football team is the collective name given to a group of players selected together in the various team sports known as football.Such teams could be selected to play in a against an opposing team, to represent a football club, group, state or nation, an All-star team or even selected as a...
Paris Saint-GermainParis Saint-Germain Football Club, also known simply as Paris Saint-Germain and familiarly as Paris SG or PSG is a professional football club from Paris, France. It was founded in 1970 thanks to the merger of Paris FC and Stade Saint-Germain...
(PSG). It is known as the "most notorious stand in French football" due to its links with violence and far-right political groups and is a symbol for football
hooliganismFootball hooliganism is unruly and destructive behaviour — such as brawls, vandalism and intimidation — by association football club fans. Fights between supporters of rival teams may take place before or after football matches at pre-arranged locations away from stadiums, in order to avoid arrests...
and political extremism within French culture.
Memorable Matches
The modern Parc des Princes hosted one of
FranceThe France national football team represents the nation of France in international football. It is fielded by the French Football Federation and competes as a member of UEFA....
's greatest football achievements, the 2-0 victory over Spain in the 1984 European Championship final. It was also the scene of one of French football's most spectacular disasters on November 17, 1993, when
Les Bleus were beaten 1-2 by Bulgaria in the last minute of play and thus failed to qualify for the
1994 FIFA World CupThe 1994 FIFA World Cup, the 15th staging of the FIFA World Cup, was held in the United States from 17 June to 17 July 1994. The United States was chosen as hosts by FIFA in July 1988...
in the United States. At the club level, the Parc des Princes has been the scene of some of Paris Saint-Germain's most memorable European games, in particular a 4-1 victory over
Real MadridReal Madrid Club de Fútbol is a professional football club based in Madrid, Spain. It is the most successful team in Spanish football and was voted by FIFA as the most successful club of the 20th century, having won a record thirty-one La Liga titles, seventeen Spanish Cups, a record nine European...
in the
UEFA CupThe UEFA Europa League is a competition for eligible European football clubs; the second most prestigious European football contest after the UEFA Champions League. It is an annual football cup competition for European club teams organised by the Union of European Football Associations...
quarter-final in 1993 in which PSG scored the crucial last goal on the very last play of the game.
Les Bleus have returned to the Parc des Princes only once since the opening of the Stade de France in 1998. On September 12, 2007, they were defeated 0-1 by
ScotlandThe Scotland national football team represents Scotland in international football and is controlled by the Scottish Football Association. Scotland are the joint oldest national football team in the world, alongside England, whom they played in the world's first international football match in 1872...
in a Euro 2008 qualifier.
Parc des Princes also hosted various
2007 Rugby World CupThe 2007 Rugby World Cup was the sixth Rugby World Cup, a quadrennial international rugby union competition inaugurated in 1987. Twenty nations competed for the Webb Ellis Cup in the tournament, which was hosted by France from 7 September to 20 October. France won the hosting rights in 2003,...
matches including the Argentina-Ireland showdown.
External links
Official Websites
Official Parc des Princes Website Official Club Website Polish Fan Club New York City Fan Club London Fan Club Paris Saint-Germain F.C. at the
Ligue 1Ligue 1 is the top division of French football, one of two divisions making up the LFP, the other being Ligue 2. One member club, AS Monaco, is based in the independent Principality of Monaco, rather than in France proper...
Official Website
Paris Saint-Germain F.C. at the
UEFAThe Union of European Football Associations is the administrative and controlling body for European football. It is almost always referred to by its acronym UEFA ....
Official Website
News Sites
Paris Saint-Germain News from
Le ParisienLe Parisien is a French daily newspaper covering both international and national news, and local news of Paris and suburbs. It was established as Le Parisien libéré by Émilien Amaury in 1944, and the name was changed to the current one in 1986...
Paris Saint-Germain News from
L'EquipeL'Équipe is a French nationwide daily newspaper devoted to sports. The paper is noted for coverage of football , rugby, motorsports and cycling...
Paris Saint-Germain News from
Sky SportsSky Sports is the brand name for a group of sports-oriented television channels operated by the UK and Ireland's main satellite pay-TV company, British Sky Broadcasting. Sky Sports is the dominant subscription television sports brand in the United Kingdom and Ireland...