The most romantic city in the world apparently also saves a famous football legend in it.
The legend is called Paris Saint-Germain (PSG), which is attached to achievements, difficulties, and violence. Even so, PSG has remained the pride of Parisians since 38 years ago.
Learn more about this club through ten interesting facts that we have prepared below.
10. PSG began its history on 12 August 1970 from the merger of two Paris FC football clubs and Stade Saint-Germain. But the club was split in two in May 1972 with the club’s professional players joining CA Montreuil and appearing in Division One under the name Paris FC, and amateur players still playing with the name PSG in the third division. Ironically, PSG successfully promoted to Ligue 1 on June 4, 1974 and in the same year Paris FC were relegated. Since then until now, PSG have never been relegated from Ligue 1.
9. PSG is based at the Parc des Princes stadium which was inaugurated on June 4, 1972 by then French President Georges Pompidou. The stadium was designed by architect Roger Taillibert and cost the construction of € 13.7 million. Only a year later, PSG later became the permanent occupants of the stadium.
8. The first PSG uniform is red with white shorts and blue socks. Then fashion designer Daniel Hechter designed a new uniform in May 1973 which became the club’s important icon through a blue uniform with a red vertical stripe in the middle of a uniform flanked by two white lines. Although finally the uniform has undergone many changes, the red vertical line in the middle of the PSG uniform is still used today. Hechter also later became president of PSG from 15 June 1973 to 9 January 1978.
7. Paul Le Guen who is now a PSG coach was a former PSG captain and played for the club for seven seasons and managed to bring PSG to the championship in the 1996 Cup Winners’ Cup. Lyonnais before moving to handle Glasgow Rangers. Unfortunately he recorded a bad history at the club as a manager with the shortest tenure.
6. CANAL + television station became the owner of PSG after gradually buying shares of previous club owners since 1991. Finally in 1997 they became the majority owner of the club and officially became the sole owner since August 2005. But the station announced on April 11, 2006 that they sold PSG to investment companies from America and France namely Colony Capital, Butler Capital Partners, and Morgan Stanley with estimated prices of € 41 million
5. The famous PSG support group is The Boulogne Boys consisting of groups watching in the Boulogne stands at the Parc des Princes stadium. The group unfortunately became famous due to the acts of hooliganism and violence they committed. On two different occasions at Auxerre and Nantes in 2005 and 2006, the group was involved in a fight with another group of PSG supporters. This year the French Interior Minister told the group to disband or be imprisoned.
4. From its inception until now, PSG has been led by 13 presidents. Their first president was Pierre-Etienne Guyot who took office from 12 August 1970 to 5 June 1971. The current president is Charles Villeneuve who has held his position since May 2008.
3. PSG is known as one of the clubs that is a regular supplier for players on the French national team. Some national players from Les Blues from PSG are Raymond Domenech, Joel Bats, Youri Djorkaeff, Luiz Fernandez, Bernard Lama, Jocelyn Angloma, David Ginola, and Nicolas Anelka.
2. PSG’s toughest rival is Olympique Marseille (OM) and a duel between the two is called Le Classique based on the El Clasico duel between Real Madrid and Barcelona. The geographical location of the two French clubs also made their second duel symbolize the duel between North (PSG) against the South (OM). His second match began to warm up in the early 1990s through the efforts of CANAL + which aired his second match. Eventually rivalry began to materialize between the two clubs and their supporters.
1. When Olympique Marseille’s Ligue 1 title in the 1992-93 season was lifted because it was found guilty in match-fixing, PSG requested that the title be theirs because they were second. But CANAL + opposed this desire because they were afraid of the reaction of their customers in the Provence region. The station even threatened to withdraw from full French football activities if PSG’s wishes were granted. Parties to the league and the French Football Federation (FFF) finally granted the wishes of CANAL +. Therefore the 1993 Ligue 1 title did not belong to any club in France.
