If the winner of the 106th edition of the Coupe de France will not offer anything new, the two teams having already been titled in the competition (5 times for OL and 14 times for PSG), the location brings its share of freshness. It is in fact in the north that the executive committee of the French Football Federation decided to relocate the final. The Stade de France being under construction to host rugby sevens, then the athletics events during the Olympic Games (July 26-August 11), it is the Pierre-Mauroy Stadium, home of LOSC during the League season 1, which will welcome Parisian and Lyon supporters for an evening.
The perfect candidate
The only constraint required by the Federation to choose the new location for the final was to find a stadium with a minimum capacity of 50,000 seats. The Pierre-Mauroy stadium can accommodate 50,100 people, so this criterion is met. Especially since the competing cities did not really appeal to the steering committee, Marseille being considered less safe and Lyon still in the running in the competition. The FFF therefore formalized the designation of the northern arena on March 7.
The venue, which is now called the Decathlon Arena, is a regular at major events. With five matches during the Rugby World Cup, including the group match of the France team against Uruguay (27-12), another match of the French rugby team during the Six tournament Nations against Italy (13-13), or the quarter-final of the Europa Conference League between LOSC and Aston Villa sold out on April 18, Pierre-Mauroy showed his ability to host important sporting moments This year.
Other upcoming events
In the past, the stadium, with a retractable roof, had already hosted the Davis Cup final in 2014 and 2017, the European basketball championship in 2015, the handball world championships in 2017 and certain Euro 2016 matches. of football. From June, it will even prepare for the arrival of the biggest sporting event of the year since the Olympic basketball events (July 27 – August 4) and handball (August 6 to 11) will take place in Lille.
