Champions League: women's PSG seeks to increase its audience

Like other French women's football clubs, Paris Saint-Germain is trying to attract spectators to the Parc des Princes with reduced prices for the quarter-final second leg of the Champions League on Thursday against the Swedes BK Häcken (9:00 p.m.).

On the eve of the match, 10,000 tickets out of the 48,000 seats at the Parc des Princes were sold by PSG, according to a source within the club, who still expects some sales until Thursday evening.

Still far from the record dating from 2022, when more than 43,000 people went to the Parc des Princes during the Champions League semi-final return against Olympique Lyonnais. That same year, more than 27,000 tickets were sold for the quarter-final against Bayern Munich.

Thursday (9:00 p.m.) against BK Häcken, the Parisian club will not reach this peak but is trying to attract the public by offering attractive prices: €8, €15 or €30 depending on the positioning. Prices also offered by OL at Groupama Stadium against Benfica on Wednesday or Paris FC in the group stage.

“It’s going to be a great poster. We base ourselves on men's football regarding the prestige of the clubs but today Häcken is a big European team,” PSG defender and executive Sakina Karchaoui explained to AFP, who knows well that little-known European clubs are sell fewer places and despite the stage of the competition.

In the event of qualification, the Parisiennes - who beat the Swedes in the first leg (2-1) - will find the Lyonnaises in the last European four. A record attendance could then be expected, a few months before the Olympic Games in France.

But these figures are still far from the world record for an official women's match, recorded in 2022 at the Camp Nou during a C1 semi-final between Barcelona and Wolfsburg, with more than 90,000 spectators.

“It’s still the PSG grounds, I think it’s always a great signal that the club sends when it gives girls access to the Park, it gives them light and they deserve it,” added Wednesday at a press conference the coach, who must do without three injured players for at least a month: Lieke Martens, Jackie Groenen and Clare Hunt.

For her part, French striker Marie-Antoinette Katoto is fit to play after having been hit in the right knee for several days and having missed the first leg: “Her sensations were rather good in her knee following the shock last week, this seems to have resolved completely, and today the signals are rather green,” detailed Jocelyn Prêcheur, who will be able to rely on her currently in-form attacker, Tabitha Chawinga.