Football: what if FIFA offered the Stade de France?

Will FIFA soon have its own enclosure?

The question may seem incongruous, but L'Équipe affirms, in its edition of this Thursday, that the subject was broached on February 15 by Gianni Infantino, the president of the governing body of world football, and Emmanuel Macron during an interview between the two men at the Élysée.

If the interest seems obvious for the French State, which would like to "offload" the stadium located in Saint-Denis and which had moreover planned, on this subject, to launch a call for tenders in February for its future management, knowing that the concession held jointly by Vinci and Bouygues will end on June 30, 2025. But if, instead of leaving management, France managed to sell it at an estimated price of around 600 million euros, the affair s'

would be even simpler.

And radical.

For FIFA, owning the Stade de France would have the advantage of allowing it to organize more gala matches or to have full control – and therefore the financial benefits – of the organization of the Club World Cup.

Very close to Noël Le Graët, Gianni Infantino had already raised the issue on several occasions with the now ex-president of the French Federation, whom he hastened to appoint as head of the Paris office of FIFA.

Anything but a coincidence, probably.

Now, beyond its financial cost, which does not appear prohibitive for FIFA, such a sale will however take time because the Stade de France will first have to be decommissioned from the public domain.

There is no rush, however, since in 2023,

the Dionysian stadium will host several matches of the Rugby World Cup, before being at the heart of the Paris Olympic Games in 2024. Once these two events have passed, it will then be high time to draw a new future for it.

Why not under the aegis of FIFA…