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bongaboi · 1 day ago

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A Complicated Situation In Paris

Paris FC: Challenging the status quo in the French capital

Paris is not only a cultural hub in Europe but it’s also a hub for sporting talent. FotMob - March 18, 2025, 6:36 AM By Ben Bocsák

It’s on the streets of Paris where some of the finest footballers of the modern generation had learned their trades.

At the 2022 Qatar World Cup, nine different national teams had at least one player in their squad who was born in Paris. The French national team had 11.

When it comes to football clubs, Paris Saint Germain is the dominant team in the region. They have won eight league titles in the last decade and continue to attract some of the world’s biggest stars.

Their status at the pinnacle of French football looks uncontested at the moment but a noisy ‘neighbour’ in Paris FC is looking to knock them off their perch in the near future.

For a short period of time Paris FC and Paris Saint Germain had been one and the same after a merger in the 1970s. But this was short-lived. A bitter split occurred in 1972 when Paris’ mayor had an issue with the club being situated in the suburbs of Paris in Saint Germain-en-Laye.

The results of this saw Paris FC remain its status in the first division and hosting matches in the Parc des Princes meanwhile Paris Saint Germain were relegated to the third division.

This would prove to be bittersweet for the former. Paris FC struggled to maintain their competitiveness in the top-flight and were relegated just two seasons after the split. Coincidentally, the same season Paris FC were relegated, Paris Saint Germain were promoted to the top-flight having been buoyed by a new drive and determination to get back to ‘where they belong.’

Ultimately, this saw Paris Saint Germain reseize the Parc des Princes and their status as Paris’ ‘top’ football club.

Meanwhile, Paris FC have been cast into the shadows ever since. A brief foray in the top-flight offered some hope in the 1979/80 season but they were immediately relegated back to Ligue 2.

The subsequent decades have brought little hope for Paris FC. The club has spent most of the 1980s and 1990s in the third and fourth divisions of France playing in semi-professional and amateur leagues.

Since the 2000s though, Paris FC have started to emerge as a force again by investing in young players.

Instead of focusing on the first team, Paris FC has built one of the best developmental academies in France, harnessing the talent of the city.

Over the last decade Paris FC has produced the likes of Ibrahima Konaté, Rayan Aït-Nouri, Mathys Tel, Manu Koné, Loïc Badé, Axel Disasi and Nordi Mukiele who have all gone on to play at the very highest level of the game.

The money brought in through development transfer fees has given Paris FC a new resurgence.

In 2014/15, the club earned promotion back to Ligue 2 and have remained there ever since and this season they look to return back to the top flight since 1980.

But it’s off the pitch where the most interesting changes have occurred.

Earlier this season France’s wealthiest man Bernard Arnault bought a majority 52.4% stake in the club. He is the CEO of LVMH and has an estimated net worth of $170.8 billion according to Forbes. Alongside him, minority investors Red Bull have also put a 10.6% stake in the club and have added Paris FC to their extensive portfolio that includes the likes of RB Leipzig, Red Bull Salzburg and New York Red Bulls.

Red Bull’s football CEO, Jürgen Klopp, is also involved in the project and he has recently been spotted attending games in Paris.

Together the investment group has set some lofty ambitions.

In the press conference announcing his acquisition of the club last year Arnault even opened the doors to Paris FC bringing back former player Ibrahima Konaté in the future.

When asked about the possibility, he replied:

“The idea is to train young people, then, if a former member of the club’s training team wants to come and form the backbone of the club, why not?

“It’s a possibility, but not the group’s basic strategy.”

Since then, Paris FC have also announced that from next season the club will be in very close proximity to Paris Saint Germain.

They will be moving to the Stade Jean-Bouin, currently being used by the Stade Francais rugby team which is literally just across the street from Paris Saint Germain’s home of the Parc des Princes.

With the club currently in third place in Ligue 2, just one point off an automatic promotion place, there is a strong possibility Paris FC will return to Ligue 1 after a long hiatus.

They are playing some attractive football, averaging the fourth highest goals (1.6) and the most possession (60.8%) in the league.

But while the signs are promising, these are early days at Paris FC. At the moment only three teams have an older average squad age in Ligue 2 than Paris FC. This is the antithesis of the club’s future vision. With Red Bull involved and strong academy foundations in place, Paris FC will look to build a young team in the same mould as RB Leipzig or Red Bull Salzburg or perhaps even closer to home – the current Paris Saint Germain team.

The ultimately goal is to become a true contender again and to reignite a fierce rivalry that has been dormant in the shadows for decades. If successful, Paris FC can challenge Paris Saint Germain’s hegemony and completely transform the landscape of French football.

These are lofty ambitions but with Arnault, Red Bull and Klopp involved – anything is possible.

Backed by billionaires, are Paris FC coming for PSG's crown?

Raphael Jucobin BBC Sport in Paris Published 19 December 2024 Paris has long been an anomaly in European football.

Despite sitting on the continent's most renowned talent pool, the French capital has been unable to sustain more than one top-flight club in decades, let alone produce a lasting local derby in Ligue 1.

While Paris St-Germain have enjoyed a near-uninterrupted stranglehold on French football since a Qatari takeover in 2011, the lower-league clubs that make up the rest of the city's footballing landscape have been often beset with precarious finances, stadium issues, and ill-fated mergers.

Last month's takeover of Paris FC by the Arnault family, who topped Forbes' list of richest billionaires, external in 2024 and own the luxury goods empire LVMH, looks set to buck that trend.

The acquisition, which also involves a minority stake for Red Bull, was all but official by the time Antoine Arnault, the eldest son of Bernard Arnault, attended the high-flying Ligue 2 side's home clash against Grenoble in October.

That day, the second-tier regulars would seal a fifth consecutive victory to firmly establish themselves as promotion frontrunners. A tail-off in form has resulted in them since slipping to second place, but January reinforcements should not be too difficult to come by given their newfound financial backing.

The last credible challenge to PSG's dominance in Paris came in the 1980s, with a short-lived takeover of Racing Club de Paris by businessman Jean-Luc Lagardere, who rebranded the team as Matra Racing. This briefly involved a merger with Paris FC.

Despite signing a host of stars - notably David Ginola and Enzo Francescoli - the project ultimately ended and the club were heading for financial disarray by the end of the decade, with only a run to the Coupe de France final to show for the investment.

While the stated long-term aim is to qualify for European football, Paris FC will look to use the fate of Matra Racing as a cautionary tale.

"We don't want to jump the gun," emphasises club president Pierre Ferracci, speaking to BBC Sport.

Ferracci, who has been involved in the club since 2006, will stay on for another three years after selling the majority of his shares to the Arnault family.

"We want the club's spine to be from the Paris region. Everyone else signs players from Paris, so it would be good for a local club to build on that," the 72-year-old explains. "We would still be open to players from elsewhere, though."

This focus on local talent will help the club market itself as a more grounded alternative to PSG.

The objective, the new management says, is for Paris FC to remain a "popular" club - even if this image may be somewhat at odds with the reality of being taken over by the owners of the world's largest luxury conglomerate.

The club's reputation for producing talent is nevertheless well established, with Ibrahima Konate, Axel Disasi, and Nordi Mukiele among the high-profile France internationals to have come through the ranks at Paris FC.

All too often, though, players of that ilk have been snapped up by other French clubs even before making a first-team appearance.

In this sense, the expertise of Red Bull, who now have an 11% stake, could prove key.

"The men's and women's academies are an aspect of our DNA that the family and Red Bull will want to push even further," says Ferracci.

For the time being, the big names are likelier to be found in the backroom team than on the pitch.

Jurgen Klopp, through his upcoming role as Red Bull's head of football operations, is set to play a key part in the club's development - albeit from a distance, with another notable German figure in Mario Gomez acting as the Austrian firm's man on the ground.

Ferracci, in any case, wants to make the most of Klopp's involvement in the project.

"What he did at Liverpool is the kind of thing we should be inspired by, but not try to copy," he says. "He has the technical vision, the aura, and that unifying effect, and I can't wait for his arrival."

While some have voiced fears of the club being subsumed into the wider Red Bull pyramid of clubs, both Arnault and Ferracci have quashed the prospect of a Red Bull Paris.

"We're not going to be drawn into multi-club ownership. The Arnault family are the majority shareholders in this deal," says Ferracci, who has previously expressed his distrust of a system which is increasingly taking hold in French football.

One defining feature of the club is the strength of its women's side.

Previously known as Juvisy before a merger with Paris FC in 2017, the team are six-time national champions and regularly qualify for European competition, usually finishing behind only Lyon and PSG in the league table.

Matching their neighbours, with whom they already have an established rivalry, is a more immediate objective here.

Fittingly, the women's team's first match after the takeover went through was a home fixture at Stade Charlety against PSG, with a late strike from France international Clara Mateo clinching a point for the hosts.

"The idea is to aim higher, to develop women's football to the same degree as men's. I can't promise that we'll be at Lyon's level straight away, but we'll look to break into the top two and then set new objectives when we get there," Ferracci adds.

Where exactly in the capital the club's ambitions take shape will be another matter entirely. Both the men's and women's first teams play at the multi-purpose Charlety, nestled against the Peripherique ring road in the south-east of Paris.

The open-air stadium is hardly an ideal logistical fit, chiefly due to its athletics track and the little scope for expansion. Sparse attendances were a recurring issue until a free-ticket scheme, introduced midway through last season, saw average attendances grow to over half of the 20,000 capacity.

For Ferracci, a move to the Stade Jean-Bouin, a more compact ground which sits in the literal shadow of the Parc des Princes and currently hosts rugby club Stade Francais, would be the ideal short-term option.

"I hope that, one day, the 20,000 seats won't be enough," Ferracci says. "We could aim for something from 40,000, which we don't have at either of those grounds. If we go up to Ligue 1 in the next few years, we'll make do with one of them, though."

While the prospect of a more contested derby has dominated headlines, the Paris FC decision-makers have sidestepped talk of a confrontational rivalry - with Antoine Arnault himself even professing to be a long-time fan of 12-time league champions PSG.

"I think there's room for two clubs in Paris, for two different stories that could be complementary," explained Arnault, who is CEO of Christian Dior, in a news conference.

Ferracci adds: "There's no hostility, I myself was a season ticket holder [at PSG] with my son back in the day."

The club president also highlights that PSG and Brazil legend Rai and former PSG president Michel Denisot are involved at Paris FC.

Whether that cordial, bridge-building approach survives the potentially bitter reality of a battle for supremacy in Ligue 1 and in Paris remains to be seen.

For now, though, Paris FC have a promotion campaign to get back on track.

#2025 #paris football club #paris saint-germain #ligue 1 #ligue 2

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