So far Lyon has been the right city to host semi and finals
by spade (2019-07-05 16:45:56)
Edited on 2019-07-06 04:25:00

Earlier there was lots of talk about why Paris is not hosting the final games , but I think FIFA got it right with Lyon. First, you have a city that knows about women’s soccer and readily supports it.

But more importantly, with a smaller city like Lyon, the whole area has ‘bought into’ hosting. All the local shops, vendors, etc know that there are thousands of soccer fans descending on their city. In Paris it would not be noticeable at all that the tourists are here for soccer, nor would it be possible to start chants alongside any fellow countrymen one sees in the streets. Here, it’s a given the English, Swedes, Americans and Dutch are here for women’s soccer. And that makes it very fun.

Also I think the local Lyonnaise are valuing the soccer. Many of the viewers in the Netherlands vs Sweden match were just interested locals who wanted to watch high level women’s soccer. That was really cool to see the stands full of French long after their team was eliminated.

So yes, Stade de France is the largest stadium in the country (or at least one of) but the Rhône-Alps is proving to be a great WWC host in France.


Full Disclosure: the stadium is 10k outside of the city so it is necessary to drive 30min and park at stadium for 20€ or ride a tram which has a 1hr wait+ride to arrive. Yes that isn’t ideal, but I think moving 60k people all at once would be equally difficult in Paris. You will hear ‘horror stories’ but it’s really not that bad. In fact that’s standard for many MLS stadiums.


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