Football: Paris FC hopes to attract new fans… by making its tickets free

If you wish to attend the Paris FC-Bastia match on Saturday, counting for the 14th day of Ligue 2, you will, for the first time, not have to pay a cent. The second club in the capital, behind the essential Paris Saint-Germain, has actually announced that all its home matches will now be free. All you have to do is register on the Parisian team’s website to acquire a place.

“Football must be cheaper today”

This choice stands out in this era of football business, but the idea is to allow as many people as possible to come to the Charléty stadium, the home of the Paris Football Club, located in the 13th arrondissement of the capital. “Football must be cheaper today”, advocates Pierre Ferracci, the president of the PFC, at the microphone of Europe 1.

“There are purchasing power problems, and that’s what we’re sacrificing as a priority (football matches, editor’s note), and it’s a shame for the kids,” continues the club president, who hopes that other teams will follow the approach “by lowering prices, and making football more popular and very accessible for everyone”.

Fill the Charléty stadium

If the free stands are necessarily a shortfall – of the order of several hundred thousand euros – this will be compensated, says the president, first by an increase in revenue from the refreshment bar but also by the arrival of new sponsors. A bet that appeals to supporters, like Maxence, member of Ultras Lutetia. “We didn’t expect it at all, we welcome this news with enthusiasm,” he reacts, hoping that there would be “people at Charléty”. “We have quite a few requests. All the lights are green, hoping that this will follow on the ground,” agrees this supporter.

The objective of the club’s approach is clear: fill the Charléty stadium! The enclosure has 19,000 seats, but last season, only 4,000 were occupied on average. The other goal of the maneuver is also to want to exist in the shadow of its bulky neighbor, Paris Saint-Germain.