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Groupama renews Lyon stadium naming rights deal

French insurance company Groupama has extended its agreement for naming rights to the home stadium of Ligue 1 football club Olympique Lyonnais.

The new three-year deal will run until July 31, 2025. The latest agreement has been signed after Groupama renewed its deal with Lyon in October 2020. That deal had been due to expire in the summer of 2022.

The new deal also includes naming rights to Lyon’s training ground, which will continue to be officially known as the Groupama OL Training Center. Groupama has sponsored Lyon’s home stadium, which has a capacity of 59,000, since 2017.

Lyon president Jean-Michel Aulas said: “The continuation of our collaboration with Groupama Rhône-Alpes Auvergne validates our business plan, but also the union of two institutions at the service of their territory.

“This naming, which will last a total of at least eight years, gives credibility to our action and testifies to the quality of our relations with (Groupama managing director) Francis Thomine and his teams and to the mutual trust in our corporate values ​​and our common commitments. Today, Groupama Stadium and Groupama OL Training Center have established themselves as two reference infrastructures in France.”

Groupama Stadium opened in January 2016 and was one of the host venues for the UEFA Euro 2016 tournament that summer. The stadium was also one of the main venues during the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup and staged the final between USA and the Netherlands.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Groupama Stadium opened up as a vaccination centre, with 350,000 doses having been delivered.

Olympique Lyonnais is set to begin work on a new 16,000-capacity indoor venue at the start of 2022. Earlier this month, naming rights to the arena were acquired by computer and technology stores owner LDLC through an eight-year deal.

Image: Zakarie Faibis/CC BY-SA 4.0/Edited for size