The Beaujoire stadium can accommodate 35,000 spectators -

HB / 20 minutes

  • Nantes Métropole votes on a work program to adapt the stadium to host the Rugby World Cup and, perhaps, the 2024 Olympics

  • The community, which announced in 2017 that it wanted to demolish the stadium, had already spent 5 million euros on renovations last year.

  • Inaugurated in 1984, the Beaujoire is the largest sports center in Nantes.

Threatened with demolition about two years ago, the La Beaujoire stadium still has a bright future ahead of it.

The metropolis is counting on the FCN's lair to host matches of the 2023 Rugby World Cup (organized by France) and then possible relocated sporting events on the occasion of the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris.

But, for this, the 36-year-old speaker needs "adaptation work" to meet the "requirements" by these international competitions.

This is why the elected representatives of the Metropolitan Council will have to vote this Friday a spending program amounting to 7.73 million euros.

The necessary work will begin in the summer of 2021 and will take place over a year and a half.

New screens, new ticket controls

They concern first of all the giant screens to be replaced.

Installed for the 2007 Rugby World Cup, the two screens present "advanced obsolescence", notes Nantes Métropole.

The organizing committee for the 2023 World Cup would like screens of 60 m2 but the metropolis has offered screens of 48 m2 for technical and financial reasons.

They will still be a little bigger than the current ones.

The program also plans to create a new electronic ticket control system.

Equipment to quickly scan tickets will be installed.

Their arrival will lead to the demolition of the current ticket office building and the construction of new ticket offices and new entrances (gates) to the stadium.

A locker area will also be added.

In addition to these innovations visible to spectators, it is also planned to create a medical practice, a specific room for anti-doping controls and a television studio.

It will also be necessary to modernize the telecommunications networks (wifi, TV streams) and bring electricity up to standard.

Already 5 million euros last year

These expenses are in addition to the 5.2 million euros already incurred a year ago by Nantes Métropole.

They then concerned the sanitary facilities, the sealing and the accesses of the opposing supporters.

In total, a bill of 13 million euros of public money.

What will happen in the following years?

"Today there is no overall stadium renovation project", assures Johanna Rolland, mayor of Nantes and president of the metropolis.

She specifies that this work is "the realization of the necessary elements of renovation to be able to accommodate these two important events".

By the way, the Beaujoire stadium has not yet been officially selected for the 2024 Olympic Games, it is only preselected.

At the same time, the stadium occupancy agreement binding the FCN to Nantes Métropole expires in 2021. Discussions have begun with the club, an almost exclusive user of the enclosure.

They include the issue of lawn renewal, which is necessary in the medium term.

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  • Nantes

  • Sport

  • Olympic Games

  • Paris 2024

  • Rugby World Cup