Paris Saint Germain (rugby league team)

Paris Saint Germain were a rugby league club based in the suburbs of Paris, France who competed for the first two seasons of the Super League. Indeed, they played in the first ever Super League game in Paris in 1996 against the Sheffield Eagles.

Foundation

The club was created as an attempt to give the new Super League a European dimension, and the assumption was that the larger population of the capital city and its transport links and accessibility for English supporters would give a French franchise the best chance of success. The first game, on March 29th 1996 in the Charlety stadium, attracted a crowd of 17,873 and the team beat Sheffield Eagles 30-24 but after a few weeks the attendances tailed off as the defeats mounted. In addition, the team was composed of a large number of imported players, with the club exempt from the restrictions placed on English heartland clubs.

Demise

The club finished 11th in the first season, winning only 3 and drawing 1, and achieved the same position in Super League II, albeit this time with 6 wins. At this stage the attendances were low and the cost of paying players and travel to England meant the club was losing money. In reality, Paris had never been a heartland for rugby league in France and was unlikely to attract dedicated supporters or develop local players. This was recognised in 2006 when a second attempt to establish a full time professional club in France was made with the establishment of Les Catalans in and around Perpignan.

At the end of the 1997 season the club was dissolved and the experiment was generally considered to be a failure.

Aftermath

French rugby league regrouped around its core clubs in the south and began to post good results in the Challenge Cup culminating in a semi-final appearance for the Toulouse Olympique club in 2005. During the competition they beat Hull KR and Widnes Vikings, then a Super League club. In 2006 (Super League XI) Les Catalans returned to the professional game ending the 8 year wilderness period for France since the demise of the Paris club. This time the local support was already steeped in rugby league, 17 of the squad were good quality French players and the location regularly attracts large numbers of travelling English supporters. The Catalan venture is looking more and more like it will be a long-term success with average crowds of over 8,000 and growing consistently, and if it is part of the debt will go to the Paris club if only to show what needed to be done to make the sport professionally viable in France. In 2007, Les Catalans got through to the final of the Challenge Cup only to lose to St Helens.

External links

* [http://www.superleague.co.uk Super League official site]
* [http://www.catalansdragons.com Les Catalans official site]