Champions League club granted permission for unique 15,000-seater new stadium after moving games 70 miles away
SURPRISE package Brest will still play play Champions League home games 70 MILES away – despite winning permission to build for a jaw-dropping new stadium.
The French club are a stunning seventh out of 36 teams in the group phase of Europe’s top event – having never qualified before for any continental tournament.
Brest can’t play European games at their Stade Francis Le Ble[/caption]
But Brest’s 15,000-capacity stadium falls short of Uefa requirements.
So they’ve been taking on European giants at Guingamp’s Stade de Roudourou, which holds 18,400 fans.
Unsurprisingly, there’s huge demand for tickets in such an historic season.
So Brest enquired with Stade de France chiefs about using the famous 80,000-capacity venue.
But that’s come to nothing – and now the club say they will stay put at Guingamp for the rest of their European adventure.
However, Brest won the go-ahead last month to build a new ground called Arkea Park with futuristic sloping stands – albeit still limited to hosting the same 15,000 figure that their current Stade Francis-Le Ble can take.
The club even had to get special permission from Ligue 1 to play French top-flight football at their home venue.
And Brest worked out that building Arkea Park would be cheaper than getting Stade Francis-Le Blé up to scratch.
The French top-flight club play their European games 114km away from home at at Guingamp’s Roudourou stadium[/caption]
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They would also have had to cut capacity by 25% to 40% – meaning a reduction of between 3,500 to 6,000.
It would also have meant “demolition of private homes and one or two buildings of the Charles de Foucauld School.”
In contrast, Brest believe Arkea Park will have the potential to host far more than just 17 Ligue 1 matches a season.
They plan to make it suitable of holding a wide range of events all year round.
In the meantime, Brest await the Champions League visit of Real Madrid on January 29… 114 kilometres (70m) from home.
