In an exchange on Facebook with Internet users on Wednesday evening, the socialist mayor of Marseille, Benoît Payan, affirmed his desire to find a buyer for the Vélodrome stadium.

"I want to sell it because it costs us too much money", he recalled, while the finances of the city are "catastrophic".

The mayor of Marseille Benoît Payan has announced that he wants to sell the Vélodrome stadium, Marseille's temple of sport, because of its high cost for the municipality, after the presentation of an audit highlighting the “catastrophic” financial situation of the city.

"The stadium, I want to sell it because it costs us too much money. I want to sell it because it is a financial mismanagement", explained Wednesday evening the city council during an exchange on Facebook with Internet users , recalling that he had already expressed himself in this direction when he was in the opposition.

"I will do it if I find a buyer. And I will manage in the months, the years to come to find a buyer. The stadium is no longer possible. Niet, finished. 15 million euros from the pocket of the Marseillaises and Marseillais for 30 years, finished ", he launched.

Sport, Pandora's Box

The socialist Benoît Payan took over the reins of the city at the end of September at the head of the left coalition of the "Marseille Spring" after the resignation of the ecologist Michèle Rubirola.

The elected official denounced Wednesday a waste of public money by the former right-wing majority of the city led for twenty-five years with the former mayor LR Jean-Claude Gaudin on the occasion of the delivery of a audit ordered after the victory of the left in the municipal elections.

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In terms of mismanagement, it is often through sport that the previous majority have sinned

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"And, in terms of mismanagement, it is often through sport that the previous majority has sinned, it is a bit of a Pandora's box of missed investments", had notably explained the elected representative, citing the Velodrome stadium as an example "of which the bad financial negotiations cost us 93 million euros ".

Works of 268 million euros

Inaugurated in 1937 with a cycle track, renovated and delivered in October 2014, the Vélodrome has become the second largest French stadium.

A roof has been installed.

The work cost 268 million euros.

While in opposition, Benoît Payan denounced the public-private partnership initiated by the right-wing municipality with the Arma consortium for the renovation of the stadium, pointing out a significant additional cost linked to "exorbitant financial costs".

Too low a rent? 

On the revenue side, the regional chamber of accounts had already estimated last November in a vitriolic report on the management of the town, that the rent paid to the city by the Olympique de Marseille was too low.

It would have to increase to 8 million euros per year, against 5 today, wrote the magistrates also denouncing the 52.2 million euros in subsidies paid between 2012 and 2017. 

The declaration of the mayor of Marseille comes in the midst of a crisis at the WTO, the day after the dismissal of Portuguese coach André Villas-Boas and four days after the incidental violence committed by supporters at the training center.