Features

Red Star Paris stadium to undergo upgrades

Red Star Paris’ Stade Bauer home is set to undergo €2m (£1.7m/$2.2m) of renovations as the historic French football club fights for promotion to the country’s second division.

Red Star, which currently sits third in the third-tier Championnat National, has been exploring opportunities surrounding the potential construction of a new multi-purpose stadium.

However, the club’s hopes were dealt a blow in November when William Delannoy, the Mayor of Saint-Ouen, stated that the land for the project would not be sold in the immediate future.

Delannoy has approved the latest upgrades though, with a new natural grass pitch, lighting and security cameras set to be implemented this spring, with work beginning the day after the final home game of the season on May 7.

The club – which was founded in 1897, more than 70 years before Paris Saint-Germain was established – will be responsible for overseeing the work.

Stade Bauer has had a synthetic playing surface since 2011, but the club will ask to start the 2020-21 campaign away from home in order to allow the new natural surface some precious extra days to settle. The stadium’s current capacity will remain unchanged.

There remain long-term hopes that the vision for a new stadium of between 10,000 and 15,000 fans (pictured) will be resurrected in the future, with Delannoy up for re-election in March. However, the Mayor previously expressed concerns about the financial outlay for such a project.

Image: Réalités