This is the third Ligue 1 club to do so, RC Lens is buying its iconic Stade Bollaert

The stadium had been valued at €54.9 million, but the sale ended at €27 million due to various loans, clauses and discounts, the city's Socialist Party mayor, Sylvain Robert, said at the city council meeting that approved the transaction.

One clause, in particular, prohibits any change in the stadium's name for 20 years in exchange for a reduction in the sale price of 6.5 million, to which are added 8.4 million "for residual rights" of the club, which benefited from a lease until 2052, and 10.1 million "corresponding to the amount of the loan taken out by RC Lens with the region." The balance is made up of discounts.

Joseph Oughourlian, the club's president and owner, who spoke in the preamble to the city council meeting, wants to renovate the 38,223-seat stadium in order to increase the club's revenue. The last renovations were carried out in 2015, in preparation for Euro 2016. Ten years later, he emphasized to the elected officials, "its infrastructure is starting to show its age."

"Place of life"

The businessman intends to create "more VIP seats," "develop all sorts of facilities around the stadium," including a fan zone, and also "change the changing rooms," he explained.

The stated objective: "To transform this iconic place into a real living space, so that it is not a place that only hosts 18 matches per season," the number of matches that RC Lens plays at home.

He explained this need to "diversify (the) revenues" of RC Lens by "the fragility of football clubs which depend too much on TV rights".

French football has been in the throes of a television rights crisis for several years, and uncertainty looms over the broadcasting conditions for Ligue 1 next season. Joseph Oughourlian has also emerged as a leading figure in the protest against the last-minute deal reached last summer that granted Ligue 1 TV rights to British streaming company DAZN until 2029 for nearly €400 million a year.

The acquisition of Stade Bollaert-Delelis should give more financial room to a club that already cleaned up its wage bill last winter by parting ways with several players with significant contracts, such as its goalkeeper and captain Brice Samba and its defenders Kevin Danso and Przemyslaw Frankowski.

The Artois club also made the biggest sale in its history by sending Abdukodir Khusanov to Manchester City for around €50 million during this winter transfer window, which, however, ended their European hopes. Lens finished eighth in Ligue 1.

Mining identity

Bollaert is a veritable cauldron that has a 99% attendance rate this season, or 37,936 spectators on average, more than the city's population (32,600 in 2021), and carries within it the club's mining identity.

The Compagnie des Mines invested in the plot of land on which the stadium was built. Construction was entrusted to 180 miners until its inauguration in 1933, 27 years after the club's creation.

The stadium, which hosted matches at the 1984 and 2016 Euros and the 1998 World Cup, is named after Félix Bollaert, former chairman of the board of directors of the Lens mines, and André Delelis, mayor of Lens when the city bought the stadium for a symbolic one franc in 1974 when the company broke away from the club.

At each match, the tens of thousands of supporters present sing the song "Les corons" by Pierre Bachelet, a tribute to the underground miners.

By becoming the owner of its stadium, Lens is following in the footsteps of Lyon, a pioneer in this field in France.

Olympique Lyonnais inaugurated its Groupama Stadium in early 2016. It was built over five years in the middle of a complex, OL Vallée, which also includes a hotel, offices, shops, a training stadium, and a huge multi-purpose hall. The reported cost of this complex in the suburbs of Lyon was €450 million, including €300 million for the 59,000-seat stadium alone.