After Charles de Gaulle in 2021, here is Jacques Chirac’s turn to have a football stadium named after him. “There was no Jacques Chirac stadium in France. When I proposed the idea to Claude Chirac, she said yes right away”, comments Jacques Vendroux, general manager of the Variétés Club de France which brings together former football players and personalities.
The inauguration took place on Saturday July 2 with a VCF gala match. The Marcillac-la Croisille stadium, a town of 800 inhabitants, in Corrèze, stronghold of the Chiracs, now bears the name of the former head of state. Present for the inauguration, his daughter Claude Chirac was very moved. “It must be recognized, Jacques Chirac was not a great athlete himself, but he always had an admiration for athletes in general, and high-level athletes in particular. With this stadium in Marcillac-la-Croisille, he would have been very, very happy. Because it’s Corrèze, because it’s Marcillac, and because it’s the Variétés club …”, she confided to France 3 Nouvelle Aquitaine.
8000 collected
On the lawn, big names in football, all generations combined, Robert Pirès, Christian Karembeu, Alain Giresse, Dominique Rocheteau, Marius Trésor, the captain who played his last match, and Laurent Koscielny who played his first meeting under the colors of the VCF. They won 7-1 against a team of former players from Corrèze and Marsillac. 8,000 euros were collected for the Chirac foundation, which takes care of people with disabilities.
A nod to the 1998 World Cup, won at the Stade de France by Les Bleus encouraged by President Jacques Chirac, the jerseys of Robert Pirès and Zinedine Zidane, gifts received by the Head of State during his mandates, were exhibited on the lawn, as well as a replica of the World Cup. Objects lent for the occasion by the museum Museum of President Jacques Chirac, Sarran, which presents and preserves the gifts received by Jacques Chirac.