Lille-Lyon Will Shatter Ligue 1 Attendence Records

By: Inara | February 28th, 2008

This Saturday, the Stade de France will be celebrating their 10 year anniversary, as well as France’s 1998 World Cup victory. In conjunction with the Ligue de Football Professionnel (LFP), they have decided to mark the occasion by scheduling a French league game at France’s national stadium.

Of the ten league games scheduled to take place this weekend, Lille-Lyon was chosen for this honor, partly because Lyon is always likely to draw neutral fans in Paris, and partly because the other games this weekend aren’t as interesting. (also, when this fête was scheduled, no one would have thought that Lille would be 20 points behind Lyon…).

So far, over 75,000 tickets have been sold. This has shattered the previously held record for an L1 match, which was 57,609 spectators for Marseille-Lyon back in August 2005. Assuming that more tickets will be purchased as we get closer to the match, this game could also break the absolute attendance record of 76,184 for Lille-Manchester United back in 2004.

The fact that a simple league game is capable of drawing these sort of numbers is reassuring for all parties involved. Lille and Lyon are currently in the process of building higher capacity stadiums, so this gives them hope that they will be able to fill most of the seats. It’s also good news for the LFP because many of the spectators are neutral fans who don’t necessarily support L1 teams but are interested in the “spectacle.” In this day and age of French football labeled boring, the LFP’s campaign might just be what is needed to revive interest in the French league.

If all goes well, the LFP may decide to make games like this an annual or even a biannual event.