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Renovations complete at Ligue 1 club’s stadium

A new-look Stade Crédit Agricole-la Licorne has officially been revealed following renovation work at the home of French Ligue 1 football club Amiens SC in the wake of an incident last year that injured 29 travelling supporters.

The revamped Stade Crédit Agricole-la Licorne was inaugurated yesterday (Tuesday) ahead of AS Monaco’s 2-0 victory over Amiens in a Ligue 1 clash. On September 30, 2017, a barrier collapsed inside the stadium during a match against Lille.

Visiting Lille supporters had been celebrating Fodo Ballo-Toure’s 16th minute goal at the stadium, when a barrier collapsed and caused dozens of fans to fall around one-and-a-half metres onto the pitch. A security meeting held immediately after the incident led to the match being abandoned, with Amiens president Bernard Joannin subsequently pledging to provide the necessary funds to improve the stadium.

The work to the 12,000-capacity stadium has now been completed at a cost of more than €15m (£13.3m/$17m), almost the same amount as the venue cost to build when it opened in 1999. The renovation work has included the installation of a new transparent roof and a hybrid pitch with undersoil heating.

All seats and guardrails within the stadium have also been replaced, with dressing rooms, lighting and sounds systems also modernised. The stadium is owned by the Amiens Métropole local authority, which said in a statement reported by the AFP news agency: “The stadium has been completely rehabilitated to meet the high-level status of Ligue 1 and the expectations of the public.

“In total, more than 15 million euros were invested to give back to this sporting facility the lustre which it should never have lost, for want of maintenance.”

Image: Amiens SC