On the day of the inauguration of the Campus PSG, Nasser Al-Khelaïfi, President of Paris Saint-Germain, took advantage of the Rothen S’enflamme program on RMC Sport (exceptionally live from the Campus PSG) to talk about the forthcoming departure of the Parc des Princes. For the Parisian president, it’s a matter of life and death, and the only way out is to build a new stadium as soon as possible.
Al-Khelaïfi “I really like the Parc des Princes, everyone does”.
“I really like the Parc des Princes, everyone likes it. If I listen to my heart, we don’t leave. But today, everyone in Europe has stadiums with 100,000, 80,000, 90,000 seats… We need them, otherwise we’re dead.
Is it a matter of life and death? Yes. We’re in France, but we also play in Europe. We play in the Champions League every year. If we want to be at the same level as the other clubs, and with regard to financial fair play… We need our stadium. We have no other solution.
Al-Khelaïfi: “We need to make decisions and build as quickly as possible”.
The city leaves us no choice. I don’t play politics. As far as we’re concerned, we need a stadium ready in 3-4 years’ time, and we have no time to lose, otherwise we’ll be behind other clubs in Europe. We need to make decisions and build as quickly as possible. We have a few options. We’ve been working. We need to build the new stadium as quickly as possible to be where we want to be.”
We’ve been aware of this for some time, and the president has confirmed it live on air: the story with the Parc des Princes seems to be well and truly over. The Town Hall doesn’t want to sell, so there’s an urgent need to align ourselves with the biggest clubs in Europe. While some fans will cry scandal and may not accept this, others will embrace this change of direction in the name of their club’s evolution.
All that remains to be done now is to define the contours of the new stadium, which is well on the way to being built, but for which we still know nothing, even though the chairman is talking about a 3 or 4-year deadline – a fairly short period for such a project.
