Paris Saint-Germain’s President Nasser Al Khelaifi has confirmed that the club will try to leave the Parc des Princes stadium after Paris’ city council confirmed that the stadium was not for sale.
This comes after PSG also ended their interest in purchasing France’s iconic Stade de France because it was too far east from where the club is based. The club set to explore other options in its search to expand its home.
Initially, the club had set out plans to buy the Parc des Princes outright and invest a lot of money into upgrades. These upgrades included increasing the stadium’s capacity from around 48,000 to 60,000 and improving the corporate area.
The club consistently sells out the stadium for its games, exceeding $150 million in stadium revenue for the 2022-23 financial year. However, PSG has stressed that the stadium is too small and is limiting the club’s commercial opportunities.
PSG Chief Revenue Officer Marc Armstrong explained the frustration that the club is experiencing with the current Parc de Princes situation.
“48,000 is not enough, we have the highest revenue per seat in Europe as of last season, and we’ll be there or thereabouts again this season, but we can do a lot more with a bigger stadium and we should be playing in front of 60,000 or 70,000 fans every week,” Armstrong said at a media session.
“We’ve been forced to look at other options and that’s how we see it, we don’t want to move. We want to stay at the Parc des Princes, but we have to look and have been looking seriously at other options for the last year.”
PSG have played at the Parc des Princes since their first appearance in the French top flight in 1974 and agreed a 30-year extension to their lease in 2013.
The club say they have arranged an emergency meeting for Thursday afternoon with their stadium team to begin this process.
This is a proactive approach by PSG who understand that the Parc de Princes is limiting the club from making more money with a new and larger stadium is more suitable.
