It was the “big stadium” of Alain Juppé, it is now a ball and chain at the foot of the metropolis of Bordeaux. Delivered in April 2015, the Matmut Atlantique stadium was erected to host Euro 2016 matches. The Chaban-Delmas stadium, built in 1924, was then too dilapidated. Built as part of a public-private partnership and operated by the company SBA (Stade Bordeaux Atlantique), a subsidiary of the builders Vinci and Fayat, the new stadium, originally owned by the city of Bordeaux, has belonged since 2017 to Bordeaux Métropole.
Master of the place, it is therefore its president, Alain Anziani (Socialist Party), who wanted a summit meeting – the first of its kind – between all the players directly or indirectly concerned by the Bordeaux stadium: the town hall, SBA, its two shareholders Vinci and Fayat, the Girondins de Bordeaux Football Club (FCGB), which is the stadium’s resident club, and the Union Bordeaux-Bègles, a Top 14 rugby team that plays there occasionally. This meeting took place on Tuesday 17 January. Its objective was to take stock of the difficult situation of this 42,000-seat stadium which is struggling to fill up, with a club now resident in Ligue 2 and too few cultural events.
Loïc Duroselle, president of SBA, nevertheless tries to reassure; to justify, also, this “large useless stadium” according to the mayor of Bordeaux, Pierre Hurmic (Europe Ecologie-Les Verts), elected in July 2020. At the time of the project, elected from the opposition, he had strongly opposed the mayor of the time, Alain Juppé… in vain. For the president of SBA, on the contrary, “ we can really say that this stadium has achieved the objectives set by the city at the start and then the metropolis, that Bordeaux is a place of designation for these very big events, that it benefits the local economy, and the image of Bordeaux ».
“Deficit more than 2 million euros”
In 2023, the stadium will host five Rugby World Cup matches, FCGB matches and five concerts. A record for infrastructure. Despite these high attendance forecasts, “we can’t manage to balance, we are in deficit by more than 2 million euros”, concedes Loïc Duroselle. Ahead of the lunch bringing together the actors of Matmut, Alain Anziani, the shareholders and the operator of the stadium met to study a revision of the contract. “The objective was to see how the contract can suit everyone. We have started a first negotiation to find a fair contract for them and the metropolis “declares Alain Anziani, while recalling:
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