Red Star vs. Olympique de Marseille
Published 3 months ago
This Saturday night is game night at the Stade de ...
- Text by Bruna Volpi
This Saturday night is game night at the Stade de France, the biggest stadium in the country, but this time it's a little different: in this folk festival-like event, expected to be attended by 35,000 people, the spotlight is on Red Star FC 93, cult team hailing from the Parisian suburbs, who will battle against the French football titan, Olympique de Marseille.
One of France’s oldest clubs, Red Star was founded in a Paris café in 1987 by Jules Rimet (the same who, years later, initiated the FIFA World Cup), its name a flash of red in an Englishwoman’s head – Miss Jenny, the governess to the family of one of Rimet’s associates. Based for years in Saint-Ouen, a surburb of workers, immigrants and communist mayors, Red Star’s unusual tradition and unique activist heritage goes on through WWII, when it became a place of resistance to the Nazis. Today, it borrows the ’93’ from the postal district of bad reputations, the council of Seine-Saint Denis, as it tries to help the population of the territory through the Red Star Lab: a structure frequented by young football players created to, through the use of sports, increase the local children’s cultural awareness, provide equal opportunities and develop creativity in artistic and media areas.
See the game this Saturday, 7th of January at 20.45h - Ticket prices start at 10€, go HERE for more info
