kermischocolate wrote:colinmtn wrote:footrush wrote:If we get through and Racing beat Toulouse then the semi final could be anywhere in France , what’s the likelihood of them staying in Paris Parc Des Princes ?, might they go with Bordeaux like last year ? or is Nice on the cards ?. Opinions please ?.
All the big stadiums in France are owned by the local government so local politics gets involved in where games are held.
Some prefectures (namely Bordeaux and Lyon) have a policy of little or no stadium rent as they feel the economics of many fans coming to the city is worth not charging for the stadium use.
Some have a policy of no charge if a local team is playing (e.g the soccer stadium in Toulouse, The Velodrome in Marseilles for Toulon).
Then you have cities where a team has annoyed the local government before (e.g Racing pulling out of the redevelopment of the Stade Yves-du-Manoir) where they demand a lot of rent to host a game.
Unless European rugby can do a deal for one of the soccer stadiums somewhere closer to Paris any Racing semi final will be played in Bordeaux or Lyon.
I always wondered why there didn't seem to be much logic in where big games are held.
Cheers for info.
The French politics around Club/Stadium ownership by local government is a minefield.
In 2016 when the new soccer stadium opened in Lyon for Euro2016 the local government commissioned a report on what to do with the old stadium. This came back saying if you gave the stadium to Lyon Rugby for free and it allowed them to become a mid table Top14 team the economic benefits were better than knocking the stadium and building something else there.
Eventually they agreed to let the rugby team use the stadium for a certain % of the shares in the rugby club (was reported at 45%) and now Lyon are one of the top 6 team in France.
This is happening a lot in the top 14. 10 years ago many teams were privately owned and based in smaller towns (Biarritz, Bayonne, Brive, Dax) while 10 years later they have been replaced by big city teams (Bordeaux, Grenoble, La Rochelle, Lyon) all of whom have local government support.
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