PITCHING UP: Who knew that Paris had a second football team?
The French capital’s soccer scene is about to heat up, amid reports that luxury magnate Bernard Arnault’s family holding is poised to buy a majority stake in Paris FC, the second-divison club that lives in the shadow of Paris Saint-Germain.
The Arnault family’s holding group Agache is set to acquire a 55 percent stake in the football club in partnership with energy drink-maker Red Bull, which would buy 15 percent, according to sources with knowledge of the deal. Paris FC president and majority shareholder Pierre Ferracci would retain 30 percent.
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Red Bull, which owns the Formula 1 team Oracle Red Bull Racing, said on Wednesday it has appointed German football legend Jürgen Klopp as global head of soccer, overseeing its international network of clubs including Leipzig, Salzburg and the New York Red Bulls.
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The Paris FC acquisition, expected to be announced next week, will mark the Arnault clan’s latest expansion into sports, following luxury conglomerate LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton’s sponsorship of the Paris Olympics and its recently announced 10-year partnership with the Formula 1 racing championship.
French sports daily L’Equipe broke the news late on Wednesday that Antoine Arnault, the group’s head of communication, image and environment, and a keen soccer fan, had engineered the deal alongside his brother Frédéric Arnault, chief executive officer of LVMH Watches and managing director of Agache. LVMH declined to comment.
It sets the stage for a challenge to the supremacy of PSG, owned by Qatar Sports Investments, which regularly tops the French league.
There is another interesting dimension to the deal: Kering founder François Pinault owns the Stade Rennais football club in Brittany. If Paris FC breaks into the first division, both clubs could face off on the pitch, laying the ground for another showdown between the two historic luxury sector rivals.