Paris backs PSG stadium plan as new mayor reverses course

When last we checked in, two months ago, Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) had hit a ceiling in revenues. For one thing, the TV rights of its league (Ligue 1) were the lowest in Europe‘s Big Five. For another, it was stuck with the one of the smallest stadiums for a premier club – the Parc des Princes, with its 48,500 seats.

PSG had already invested to improve the pitch and increase the number of premium seats, but at some point costs surpass benefits. And how much should a club invest in a property owned by a third party, the city of Paris, and occupied under a revocable lease? PSG, then, has been looking to build a new stadium, outside of Paris, and has narrowed its options to sites in two suburbs: Poissy and Massy.

Political change?

In the interim France has held municipal elections. The Socialists have managed to hold on to Paris city hall, but there’s a new mayor, Emmanuel Grégoire, and Grégoire appears – now – ready to make a deal, backed by the favorable Paris Council vote of April 14.

Grégoire was first deputy to his predecessor, Anne Hidalgo, who always opposed the sale of the Parc des Princes. Grégoire not only led negotiations over the stadium with PSG for Hidalgo’s city hall but also voted against the stadium’s sale, in February 2024. As a mayoral candidate, however, he changed his tune.

The change became public in an interview Grégoire gave to the French sportscaster L’Équipe on Dec. 9, 2025. According to CNews’s coverage, he had two proposals for the club: a long-term lease or a sale. But he also had a plan for the surrounding real estate – the whole of the Porte de Saint-Cloud, which sits at the intersection of the city’s beltway (the Boulevard Périphérique) and other thoroughfares, complete with a bus interchange and a metro station.

The Porte de Saint-Cloud

Though located in the upscale 16th arrondissement, the neighborhood is not at present the nicest place for an afternoon stroll, but it does lie at the heart of a dense collection of sports infrastructure. The Parc des Princes, the Stade Jean-Bouin, the Stade Géo-André, Roland Garros, the Stade Pierre de Coubertin, the Hippodrome d’Auteuil and the Bois de Boulogne all sit within roughly one kilometer of each other – yet the surrounding streets generate little commercial footfall whenever PSG is not playing one of its annual home matches.

According to CNews and Canal Supporters, Grégoire would like to see the neighborhood renamed Porte des Princes, the beltway covered with a park (as parts of it have been elsewhere in town), and the Stade Géo-André, the site of a former Go Sport and a filling station all leased to the PSG. (Grégoire’s green opposition derides the proposed shopping mall as “PSG land.”) Right now PSG operates a PSG store at the Stade Jean-Bouin, adjacent to the Parc des Princes.

According to the city itself, the objective is to keep PSG in town with a project that would expand and modernize the stadium, renovate the surroundings, and especially transform the Porte de Saint-Cloud into a livable neighborhood – “open, welcoming, peaceful and greenified.”

The project would be worked out between the club, the 16th arrondissement’s town hall, the city hall of adjacent suburb Boulogne-Billancourt, the regional authorities and the national government.

Not on the table

One thing excluded from Grégoire’s plan, at least for now, is stadium naming rights. No opening there, then, for PSG kit producer Nike, for jersey sponsor Qatar Airways, for club majority owner Qatar Sports Investments (QSI) or for club minority owner (12.5%) Arctos Partners. Arctos, incidentally, was acquired in February by the investment firm KKR (New York) as what KKR calls “a differentiated entry point into the sports franchise stakes sector.”

Grégoire, again, is not promising to sell the Parc des Princes, but a purchase of it at a price validated by the Service Local du Domaine would constitute a significant mark-to-market event for the club’s asset base, currently valued by Forbes at $4.6 billion.