‘The Red Star’ new venue plans pigeonholed

Article posted by Coliseum, November 10^th, 2020

Image: Red Star, leparisien.fr & DR

Plans for a new arena have been formally shelved by the French football club Red Star F.C. of Paris (France). Instead, the club has decided to revamp its residence Stade Bauer in partnership with the French development group Réalités.

Red Star Football Club is a French association football club founded in Paris in 1897, and is the third oldest French football club, after Le Havre AC and Girondins de Bordeaux and was one of the founding members of Ligue 1. It has spent 19 seasons in France’s top division, but last played at the highest level in 1974-75.

The Stade Bauer is a 10,000-capacity football stadium in Saint-Ouen-sur-Seine in the northern suburbs of Paris. The stadium is mainly used by Red Star F.C. who currently plays in Championnat National but has tasted success in the Coupe de France, winning it on five occasions.

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The Championnat de France National, commonly referred to as simply National or Division 3, serves as the third division of the French football league system behind Ligue 1 and Ligue 2.

The Coupe de France is the premier knockout cup competition in French football organized by the French Football Federation.

Work on the development is all set to start next year and will be completed in 2024, with the objective of being employed as a training facility for that year’s Olympic Games in Paris. The third-tier Championnat National club said in a statement that it will continue to play at Stade Bauer while the repurposing work is carried out and that the arena will meet the requirements for top-tier Ligue 1.

Public consultation on the project has started and will continue till November 26^th, with Parisians invited to give their views on the development of the stadium in the Saint-Ouen district that has been Red Star’s home since 1909.

Saint-Ouen Mayor Karim Bouamrane told mediapersons that he wants the arena’s capacity to stand at 12,000.

In a statement, Patrice Haddad, President, Red Star, remarked, “Since taking over the club, I have made the new Bauer the priority for our development. It’s a historic moment for the entire Red Star family and a crucial step in our 2024 roadmap. Our desire is to preserve our social dimension, in the age of football business, while targeting the sports elite. The future enclosure will allow us to anchor ourselves definitively on our territory, and will give the club the means of its ambitions.”

Last June, French development group Réalités landed the contract to build a new multiuse facility that would serve as the new home of ‘The Audonians’. However, back then, Mayor William Delannoy made it clear in November 2019 that the land allocated for the project would not be sold.

In January, Red Star and the Saint-Ouen authorities said Stade Bauer would be redecorated, and the latest announcements confirm that the club and local politicians are on the same page as regards the future of the project.

Remarked Mayor Bouamrane, “We are going to renovate Bauer together so that this stadium is better integrated into its neighborhood and responds to ecological objectives and innovative mobility.”

Added Bouamrane, “Bauer must also become an open living space offering many new services. The consultation will involve residents, the club, supporters, economic players and associations, all elected municipal majority and opposition officials and the entire population.”

Bouamrane, the new Mayor of Saint-Ouen, is a “child of the club” and wants the renovated stadium to be “bustling with activity” for 18 hours a day. He is firm on revamping the arena and asserted that there is “real political will” to do so.

He informed that the Olympic village will be just 1.5 km away from the rehabilitated Stade Bauer during the Paris 2024 Olympics and he averred that a foreign delegation like the Brazilian soccer team would be “every bit interested in coming to us when the stadium is ready”.

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