Europe's richest family with Jurgen Klopp are building a new powerhouse

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The Paris metropolitan area has 12 million inhabitants, yet since 1990 only one local club has played in Ligue 1 – Paris Saint-Germain. Now this is finally going to change, as Paris FC has advanced to the elite. And it won't end with the promotion. The majority shareholder is Agache Sport, a company of the Arnault family.

"Forbes" estimates her fortune at 233 billion dollars, and Bernard Arnault himself, with a fortune valued by the magazine at 178 billion, ranked fifth among the richest people in the world. In this respect, he has no equal on the Old Continent, and is also the wealthiest person not associated with the USA. He is known mainly as the president and largest shareholder of the LVMH concern, which has many brands in its portfolio, mainly luxury, from the clothing and cosmetics industry, such as Louis Vitton, Givenchy and Sephora.

The club's minority shareholder is Red Bull. Paris FC thus entered the large Red Bull football "family", with clubs such as RB Leipzig, Red Bull Salzburg, New York Red Bulls and the Brazilian Red Bull Bragantino.

Paris FC was founded in 1969, it merged with Stade Germain and thus Paris Saint-Germain was born, but after two years it separated and it was the latter that remained in the top division, while PSG went to the third division. Paris FC played at the Parc des Princes then, and its now famous rival was in the shadow. In 1979 it was relegated from the top division and has only just returned.

As PSG emerged as a powerhouse in French and then European football, Paris FC hobbled through the lower leagues, only to be promoted to Ligue 2 in 2015, only to be relegated a year later, but then back in 2017 after Bastia were thrown out of the league.

• See also: Behind PSG's backs they are building a powerhouse. Up to 300 million euros at the start

It was still far in the shadow of PSG, but in 2020, 20% of the shares were de facto taken over by the Kingdom of Bahrain, which became the club's main sponsor. However, the sheikhs from this small country did not act on such a grand scale as the Qataris in PSG, and their investments in football were not liked by the city authorities, who accused the Bahrainis of trying to "whitewash" themselves through sport and pointed to human rights violations in the country. And the Paris authorities were one of the club's most important partners. The majority stake belonged to Pierre Ferracci and his Alpha-Groupe.

The breakthrough came in the fall of 2024. 52.4% of the shares were taken over by the Arnault family, Ferraci retained less than 29.8%, and 10.6% was taken over by Red Bull.

With such owners, can Paris FC go the way of more famous local rival Paris Saint-Germain, which is owned by Qatari sheikhs, buys stars for big money, dominates French football and is preparing for the Champions League final?

It probably won't happen, but it could become a significant force in French and perhaps even European football. "It could happen, but only in five years," says Marek Jóźwiak, a former Guingamp player and an expert on French football.

Rafał Dębiński, a commentator for Canal+ who has been following French football for years, is a bit more skeptical. "Based on what they say, the goal is not to build another PSG. It's more of a social project and an academy. Paris is the world's second largest metropolitan area after Sao Paulo. Half or more of France's internationals come from there. They brought in Red Bull to help them get ready-made know-how. It seems to me that if they have a very good player, they'll sooner sell him than try to build a powerhouse," he believes.

— This is supposed to be a social project in which education, not just football education, is to play a key role. Some of the club's graduates will go on to professional football, but the rest will receive an education — says the Canal+ commentator.

— It's great that such a family, in cooperation with Red Bull, decided to enter football. They will gradually build a stronger club, at the beginning a training center is to be built. I think they will act very sensibly. I don't believe that the club will immediately spend 100 million euros on transfers — says Jóźwiak.

"We will take it step by step," Antoine Arnault, Bernard's son, who is more involved in the club than his elderly father, told Reuters. "If you ask me for one dream, it would be to play against Liverpool in the Champions League... and who knows, maybe even win it," he added.

He admitted that it was a project he had with his siblings and that they had to convince their father, who is not a big football fan. "I think he saw with his business eye the potential to create value around the Paris FC brand," he said.

He refused to reveal how much his family would invest in the club, but admitted that reports of a figure of €100 million, which could rise to €200 million if they were promoted (which they were), were more or less true. However, most of the money would not go towards signing stars.

"We want to develop the academy, taking inspiration from Red Bull or the work of Jurgen Klopp. We won't do anything crazy. Our budget will still be light years ahead of what PSG has," board member Michel Denisot assured L'Equipe.

Jóźwiak and Dębiński agree that Paris FC will not be particularly strong next season. "The goal should be to stay calm and finish between eighth and 12th, maybe 14th. I don't see it any other way. To fight for the top five, you would have to buy 11-12 players. You won't achieve much with the ones you have," says Jóźwiak.

— The goal is to stay in the league without any problems. I don't think they'll make any big transfers, but five new players are needed because without them they probably won't stay in the league — says Dębiński.

At the moment, Paris FC had a fairly strong squad, but for Ligue 2. The most famous players were Timothee Kolodziejczak, a former defender of Sevilla (two Europa League triumphs) and Nice, who has Polish roots; Maxime Lopez, a former midfielder of Olympique Marseille and Fiorentina; and Jean-Philippe Krasso, a representative of the Ivory Coast, a gold medalist at the last edition of the African Cup of Nations, and vice-scorer of the last Ligue 2 season. "These are well-played cards," says Jóźwiak.

The newcomer also lacks a well-known coach. Stephane Gilli is 51 and just starting out as head coach after more than two decades as an assistant.

The club's problem is the small number of fans. In Ligue 2, the average attendance was only 10,500, despite the Stade Charlety having a capacity of twice that number. And that's only because tickets were free. Two years ago, an average of four thousand fans attended a match.

From the new season, the team will play at the Stade Jean-Bouin, which also holds 20,000 but is more modern, and is exactly 44 meters from the Parc des Princes, according to Google, which uses a point on the stadium to measure, not its walls. Counting from wall to wall, the distance between the buildings is even smaller. The new stadium of Paris FC is located opposite the Parc des Princes on the other side of Rue Claude Farriere.

It will be a derby between the two closest clubs in the world. They will displace the record holders, namely the stadiums of Dundee United and Dundee FC, and the Argentine Independiente and Racing Club, whose facilities are separated by 300 m.

Maybe now the attendance will increase, the previous stadium did not have good conditions for watching matches. "The last time I saw a match from such a distance was when I watched it on TV," said ironically Juergen Klopp, Head of Global Soccer at Red Bull, the person managing all the clubs of this brand.

There will be no great rivalry with PSG, however. "There are neutral relations between the fans of both clubs, Paris FC is not that size of hat," says Jóźwiak. In addition, Arnault has good relations with PSG president Nasser El-Khelaifi.

It is interesting that in such a large city and its suburbs, no competition for PSG has emerged over so many years. For comparison, in the similarly populated London metropolitan area, there are six Premier League clubs and all of them have full, usually quite large stadiums, and two more play in the Championship and also attract 20,000 people to their matches.

Meanwhile, in Paris, there was PSG in Ligue 1, Paris FC and Red Star in Ligue 2, but the latter club finished in the last safe place, with an average of 4,385 people watching its matches. In addition, Versailles and Paris 13 Atletico in the third division. Both of these clubs were fighting against relegation, with average attendances of 1,289 and 349 spectators respectively. The once mighty Racing, the strongest club in Paris before the PSG era, currently play in the fifth division.

— All the stronger clubs in Paris either fell apart or went bankrupt after a while. There is no football culture here like in England. Paris was not able to build another strong club. There are a lot of small clubs, and when Olympique Marseille was big, it also had many fans in the Paris metropolitan area. PSG was another club built in Paris, but it was the only one to stand out — recalls Dębiński.

— Red Star is on the outskirts, Racing also went into rugby, it's cheaper there. After the Qataris entered, PSG dominated the market, there was no brave one who wanted to advance. Besides, advancement is one thing, and then you have to keep the club there, and it's not that easy. You can see what's happening with television rights — says Jóźwiak, referring to the crisis on this market .

Dębiński, however, is convinced that Paris FC will gain fans. "In my opinion, it has potential, after all, there are 12 million people living in the metropolitan area, and there are always people who look askance at the rich, i.e. people like PSG. Paris FC also has rich owners, but it is supposed to operate differently. When people see how many homegrown players there are, and this is the plan, they can support this club. However, it will take decades to build a large fan base, PSG built it for 50 years," Dębiński believes.

For now, Paris FC already has a strong team in women's football. The club's players finished third in the regular season, behind only the two traditional powerhouses in women's football, Paris Saint-Germain and Olympique Lyon, and then lost 0-3 to local rivals PSG in the semi-finals of the play-offs. As you can see, it is also difficult to escape the shadow of the local rival in this field.