In line with its ambition to become one of the global football giants, French champions Paris Saint German have decided to build a huge state-of-the-art new training center, which is expected to be one of the best in the world.
The training centre will be opened in 2019.
The new facility, which will have 14 football pitches, will be built on an area of 74 hectares (182, 858 acres or 7,40,000 square meters) at Poissy (Poncy site) in Greater Paris. The new training site is a few kilometers from its current training base at Camp de Loges at Saint Germain and around 30kms from the heart of Paris as well as from its home stadium Parc des Princes.
Out of 14 pitches, four will be used by the first team and the remaining 10 by the Youth Academy and pre-Academy players. There will be four artificial turfs out of 14. All the pitches will be under the charge of Jonathan Calderwood, who joined PSG in 2013 after being voted best "Greenkeeper" of English Premier League twice in 2009 and 2012 with Aston Villa.
For the first time in France, a covered pitch with the same surface area of a full-sized pitch (115x74 yard) will ensure that training sessions can be held during bad weather. The center will also virtually serve as team hotel during training as it will have 32 luxury bedrooms and a lounge area for the first team players. It will also have 80 bedrooms for youth academy players.
There will be a sports clinic including a medical assessment and treatment area. The complex will also include an officially-approved stadium with 5000 covered seats that will host matches for the women's division 1, Women's Champions League, Youth League and CFA. It will have meeting rooms, classrooms, a library and a computer room.
PSG club officials refused to reveal the estimated total cost of the project and the amount spent on land acquisition but said that this new training center will be one of the best in the world and it will rival the likes of the one Manchester City opened last year.
The English Premier League side reportedly spent USD 200 to 250 million to build its new stat-of-the-art training center which has 16 football pitches, three gyms, cryotherapy and ultra-sound rooms, six swimming pools and players' luxury bedrooms, among others.
For media persons, training center will have a reception area, one auditorium with 200 seats, able to house a stage with 60 cameras and audio-visual projections. It will house four TV studios, each measuring 25 square meters, four interview rooms, with one for club manager and its director, one photo studio, one catering area, one closed and glazed work room looking out over the pitches and one covered terrace looking out at over the pitches.
The process of acquiring the land at Poissy began in July and it has been completed now, the PSG club officials said.
Tenders have been floated to select an architectural firm
to construct the center and it will be finalised by the end of this year. The whole of next year will be used for planing of the project. The actual work will start in September next year and construction is expected to be finished in August 2019.
"It is an ambitious project and it (training center) is going to be one of the best in the world if not the best. It is going to be game changer, our ambition is to be one of the best in the world," a club official said.
PSG has been in transformation since its taking over by Qatar Sports Investment in 2011 and it aims to be one of the best teams on the field as well as one of the richest in the world.
It has qualified for the quarterfinals of the UEFA Champions League for the last four consecutive years and it has also been rated as the seventh richest football club in the world.
In a way, building a new and and bigger training center is on expected lines considering its ambitions, as its current training center has just two pitches for its first team players.
Club Chairman and CEO Nasser Al-Khelaifi said that the training center was an essential part of PSG's ambitions to become a truly global football giant.
"For the last five years, we have worked to develop PSG in order to make it into a leading European and worldwide football club and a truly global sports brand. From the very beginning, the development of this training center has been a cornerstone of our plan. It is an essential part of our ambitious project along with the full renovation of the Parc des Princes.
"Our future training center will be one of the best in the world. This state of the art facility will allow the club to take full advantage of the fantastic pool of youth talent from the Paris region, and also attract the most talented young footballers from all over the world. The young footballers in the Youth Academy will benefit from the best possible conditions and, to inspire them even more, they will train alongside the stars of our first team," he said.
PSG said it will not abandon the current training site at camp de Loges at Saint Germain which has two training pitches along with a small stadium for youth league matches. It will now house the club's women's team and will be its training center.
The acquisition of land for the new training center is also significant as it will mark the ownership of real estate by PSG for the first time. It does not own the home stadium Parc des Princes, which the club has been using under a 30-year lease agreement. PSG spent USD 75 million in the renovation of Parc des Princes after QSI took over in 2011.
PSG is also currently focussing on digitisation and
internationalisation of the club. As part of digitisation, it has made its home stadium completely wifi-enabled by installing 550 wifi terminals at the Parc des Princes.
The club has launched its Mobile Application called 'App Stadium' just before the PSG-Marseille classico match today.
It is a smart phone application that offers free information and convenient services before and during matches to spectators Parc des Princes. The application is free, available for download on iOS and Android versions from today.
Thanks to this app, for the first time a football club will offer viewers, including journalists, an opportunity to see the stadium replays and slow action of the game, choosing their angle, a service previously reserved for VIPs at the lounges.
The app will give live access to pre-game and live game information, real-time statistics, forecasts push, push replays, slow motion videos and other real time a events. The fans will also be able to buy tickets, generate their M-Ticket (in-app), and transfer the same on resale by using the stadium app.
The application will provide access map of the stadium, guide the viewer the route of access and transport, allow taxi booking through PSG's partner G7 to and fro to the stadium from home. It will also offer fans prognosticating on the highlights of the game for gaming through PSG's partner PMU.
Through the stadium app, all the news of the social networks Facebook, Twitter and Instagram of Paris Saint-Germain and its players met on the same page updated live. The user has the choice to select the social networks he wishes to appear on the timeline.
