PSG's 1.5 trillion won annual revenue home ownership project [Lee Jong-seong's Sports Culture & Industry]

*This content was translated by AI.

For Korean football fans, the 2025-2026 UEFA Champions League (UCL) final, scheduled for May 31 (Korean time), holds special significance. This is because Paris Saint-Germain (PSG), where Lee Kang-in plays, has advanced to the final. If Lee Kang-in participates in the Champions League final and contributes to PSG's victory, he could become the first Korean to be a member of a winning team in a Champions League final.

Whether PSG can achieve back-to-back tournament titles is also a point of interest. PSG reached the Champions League summit for the first time in its history last season. PSG will face Arsenal of the English Premier League (EPL) in the Champions League final. Currently, many experts predict a narrow advantage for PSG.

However, PSG has a more important challenge this season than winning the Champions League. It is the home ownership project.

Unlike most major European football clubs, PSG does not own its home stadium. This is due to a unique sentiment in France. In France, football stadiums have been strictly public goods. It has been an unwritten rule that local governments raise construction costs and manage stadiums.

This is why only a few French football clubs, such as Olympique Lyonnais, own stadiums. Recently, private enterprise investment in stadium construction in France has gradually become active, but still 78% of stadium construction costs come from the "storehouse" of local governments.

Parc des Princes, which PSG uses as its home stadium, is the oldest stadium in Paris, established in 1897 on the site of a royal amusement park before the French Revolution. Football matches were first held here in earnest from 1932, and it has been PSG's home stadium since 1974.

Until the 1990s, PSG was virtually exempt from stadium usage fees at Parc des Princes. In addition, PSG received subsidies from local governments. Such support and consideration from local governments for local football clubs was a common sight in France. This was because local governments considered it their duty to support local football clubs.

After Qatari capital acquired PSG in 2011, PSG began paying an annual rent of about 3.5 billion won to the City of Paris and secured the rights to commercial operation of the stadium. Since Parc des Princes was an aging facility, PSG invested about 130 billion won in stadium remodeling.

However, for PSG, which has grown into a global major club, Parc des Princes is too small a stadium. Currently, the spectator capacity of Parc des Princes is about 48,000.

European football clubs typically play 25 to 30 home games per season. This means football clubs have less than a month of business days to earn money from football matches. Therefore, major European clubs are trending toward increasing spectator capacity to maximize revenue on match days. In many cases, they also install new expensive premium seats.

However, PSG could not attract as many spectators as other major clubs on match days, and there were limits to expanding premium seats. This was because the stadium was small.

This is also reflected in PSG's revenue from match days last season. PSG's match day revenue was about 264.7 billion won. However, this revenue is lower than the match day revenue of Spanish powerhouses Real Madrid and FC Barcelona, which earned 348.4 billion won and 314 billion won, respectively. This is basically because the spectator capacity of Real Madrid and FC Barcelona's home stadiums is about twice that of PSG.

Therefore, PSG has been pushing for a major stadium expansion project based on the judgment that it needs a stadium that can accommodate more than 80,000 spectators. This was because additional land acquisition was needed around the stadium to expand it.

However, the issue of stadium ownership has always been an obstacle. PSG proposed to transform a vast area of about 50 hectares around the stadium into an entertainment complex and purchase the stadium ownership, but the City of Paris did not accept this.

In the meantime, PSG formulated a plan to establish a new stadium on the outskirts of Paris. Coincidentally, PSG's plan to relocate its home stadium became an important agenda in the Paris mayoral election held earlier this year.

Emmanuel Gregoire (49), a candidate from the Socialist Party, pledged to actively negotiate the sale of the existing stadium to prevent PSG from relocating its stadium. This was because, from the perspective of the City of Paris, which absolutely needs urban regeneration and has a high dependence on the tourism industry, PSG's stadium relocation would be a major setback.

Eventually, candidate Emmanuel Gregoire was elected as Paris mayor in March this year. Afterward, the Paris City Council voted to support formal negotiations between PSG and the city regarding the sale of Parc des Princes.

Currently, the biggest key to PSG's stadium purchase is the purchase price. In 2025, PSG had proposed a stadium purchase price of about 66.9 billion won. However, at the time, the City of Paris evaluated this proposed amount as an unreasonably low price.

PSG's home ownership project, a wealthy club earning 1.5 trillion won in annual revenue, is expected to be concluded after the Champions League final. Perhaps this could be a decision that determines the fate not only of PSG, which has grown into France's largest major club and a symbol of Paris, but also of the City of Paris, which is focusing on urban regeneration projects.

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*This content was translated by AI.