“We reached them”… Paris city hall wants to bury the ax about Parc des Princes

At Paris City Hall,

It’s time to signal the end of the break. During the press conference held this Tuesday at the Paris City Hall, Emmanuelle Grégoire, first representative Anne Hidalgo, and Pierre Rabadan, deputy in charge of Sport, wanted to contact PSG to end this bickering through the media about the sale of the Parc des Princes which was going on too long. “Today the channels for discussion were cut off and we wanted to re-establish a shared and private framework for discussions around the question of extending the Parc des Princes”, asked Emmanuelle Grégoire from the start.

On the city government side, we are trying to make him understand that this poker of lies and this “posture”, this “game of balance of power”, results in nothing if not delaying the project, already very advanced to believe Emmanuelle Grégoire , the expansion of the Parc des Princes. “If we do well, we can start work as soon as the 2024 Olympics are over and in 2028 or 2029, we will have PSG matches in the new park”, he believes.

For Anne Hidalgo’s team, we remain convinced of one fundamental thing, according to the first representative: “City and PSG have what the heart of the matter has in common, which is that it is neither possible nor desirable for PSG to play anywhere other than at the Parc des Princes”. After ruling out “baroque” proposals for a new stadium in Poissy or in the Bois de Vincennes, Emmanuelle Grégoire said she was “100% sure that we will be able to solve this problem for the common good.”.

Roland-Garros and FFT examples

If it is true that PSG have, since the start of their Paris adventure in 2011, been known to favor buying a stadium, in the long term, the City of Paris has confirmed that this option is not. imagined. For him, Nasser Al-Khelaïfi’s argument that he wants us not to invest 500 million euros in a stadium that is not ours does not apply. Emmanuel Grégoire took the example of Roland-Garros and the French Tennis Federation, who for a time put forward the idea of ​​relocation before finally lining up behind the Paris City Hall option.

“The Roland-Garros site is owned by the city of Paris, but it is a concession given to the French Tennis Federation for 50 years, and FFT has invested 340 million euros there. So we can reconcile very well, on long-term contracts, the concessionaire’s economic interests and his ability to amortize his investment, especially in high-yield brands like PSG. Our position is very clear, our priority option is not sales but long contracts. »

Help from the City of Paris

The contract for the occupation of the public domain (CODP) which is currently binding on PSG and the City of Paris on the Parc des Princes and which is currently valid until 2043, can thus be revised upwards. Which, according to the first deputy, will be able to satisfy the interests of QSI and PSG. “We have specific proposals to submit to PSG to ensure speedy oversight of the project, to do so under legal, technical and financial conditions that secure PSG’s ability to amortize its investments, and over a period of time long enough to guarantee the interests of the players.” concessionaire, who actually almost became the owner of the stadium”, announced Emmanuelle Grégoire.

In PSG’s desire to acquire a bigger and more modern home, to increase its revenue, the option proposed by the town hall is undeniably the quickest to set up and the cheapest. “They had looked at the option several times to go elsewhere and, upon arrival, we all agreed that PSG’s future lay at the Parc des Princes”, revealed the first representative. This is what makes Nasser Al-Khelaïfi’s latest ultra-offensive media outing the least surprising.

On the city hall side, we think it has more to do with the context of the World Cup in Qatar, when the city hall hinted that they would not be setting up fan zones for broadcasting matches. “The discussion about the Parc des Princes is an additional casualty of the context around the World Cup, Grégoire assures. Since then there have been a few harsh words exchanged but it doesn’t matter, today we contacted PSG to get back to the negotiating table. It’s up to PSG now to decide if he wants to accept this helping hand or if he prefers to return to fighting.