Analysis
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With more than 43,000 spectators, the Champions League semi-final between PSG and OL broke the attendance record for a women’s football club match in France on Saturday evening April 30. But this performance masks the daily reality of the first division, which is still struggling to seduce the general public.
Crowd of great evenings at the Parc des Princes, this Saturday. Tens of thousands of people, men, women, children, crowd around the traditional lair of Paris Saint-Germain (PSG), where neither Lionel Messi nor Kylian Mbappé are expected. And for good reason: the public came to admire the semi-final return of the Women’s Champions League between PSG, reigning French champions, and Olympique Lyonnais (OL), the most successful team in European competition with seven trophies. Two of the best teams on the continent. “Even though it’s a semi-final, I didn’t expect there to be so many people. It’s unbelievable, I feel like it’s a boys’ game.” slips Kento, 40, who came with her two 14-year-old nieces.
Attracted by the challenge but also by the price, modest for such a poster (12 euros the ticket, 6 euros for children under sixteen), 43,254 people attended the meeting. An absolute record for a women’s football club match in France. On March 30, the women’s section of PSG had already recorded the highest attendance at home in its history during the Champions League quarter-final return against Bayern Munich on March 30, with just over 27,000 supporters in the grandstands. Far from the 91,553 tickets sold the same day during the quarter-final between Barcelona and Real Madrid, a world record in women’s football, but already not bad.
The players of the capital club are not hab…