On December 7, QSI officially announced the entry of Arctos Partners into the capital of Paris Saint-Germain. The Qatari owners thus sold up to 12.5% of the shares of the red and blue club in exchange for a little more than €500 million. Today, the arrival of the American investment fund could well play a big role in the burning issue of the future of the Parc des Princes. As a reminder, tension has clearly risen a notch in recent days between Nasser Al-Khelaïfi and Paris town hall. Faced with the town hall’s refusal to sell the Parc des Princes, the president of PSG dropped a bomb on February 8. “It’s too easy to say now that the stadium is no longer for sale. We know what we want, we wasted years trying to buy the Park. It’s over now. We want to move from the Park”.
A shock announcement which pushed the president of the Île-de-France region, Valérie Pécresse, to survey the Ile-de-France mayors to find out if a project outside Paris could be proposed to PSG. For its part, the Paris town hall continues to repeat that dialogue must not be broken with the Rouge et Bleu and displays a desire to mend things. “What we want is to no longer interact with PSG through the press. The rest is in-between and I don’t want to comment through the press. PSG will never leave the Parc des Princes »recently declared the first deputy of Paris City Hall, Emmanuel Grégoire.
Arctos pushes behind the scenes
Faced with all this commotion, Arctos is acting behind the scenes. Eager to be an active partner with QSI, the new ally of the Qataris has already presented several scenarios to PSG according to The Team. Proposals made orally and in writing. With his experience within several American franchises (in the NBA: Utah Jazz, Sacramento Kings, Golden State Warriors), in the NHL: New Jersey Devils, Pittsburgh Penguins and in the MLB: Houston Astros, LA Dodgers, Boston Red Sox ), Arctos clearly encourages PSG to maximize its revenues with its stadium. But which one? The sports daily affirms that the possibility of leaving the legendary Parc des Princes was clearly raised by the investment fund.
The idea of Arctos is to have an enclosure at the heart of a real estate project where there would be “hotels, restaurants, sports halls, offices, parks, a fan zone on match days, a shopping center”. Without forgetting a desire to be able to host other important events such as concerts, trade fairs or US sports meetings. In short, a strategy similar to that desired by Real Madrid with the XXL renovation of its Bernabéu. But this ambitious plan does not really fit with the current configuration of the Park, nestled in the heart of the 16th arrondissement. Will a solution be found? The Team concludes by letting it be known that Arctos and PSG want to quickly find a compromise.
