Inside Paris Saint-Germain’s new €300m training ground
David Schmidt
Published Apr 06, 2026
Paris Saint-Germain have spent a lot of money on players since their Qatar-backed takeover in 2011. Estimates for transfer fees alone, excluding this summer’s work, put their total spend at north of €1.4 billion (£1.2bn, $1.55bn). This does not include salaries, which L’Equipe reckons to be the largest in world football.
Advertisement
Whatever successes they may have gained from that outlay beyond the football field, in terms of marketing growth, a well-prepared World Cup in Qatar or just plain soft power, the rewards on the field have not always matched the sums spent. They are now the dominant team in France, with a record 11 titles, but European glory remains elusive.
The signings they have made over the past decade have taken the flak for that failing but after years of big expenditure, it seems that now, PSG have made one addition that will surely pay off in the long term.
And that is their new training facility at Poissy, west of Paris.
On Monday, the Paris Saint-Germain campus became a place of work for the men’s first team for the first time. Those not on international duty in June returned for medical testing and then resumed training with new coach Luis Enrique on Tuesday. Next week, the rest of the squad, including Kylian Mbappe, will join them too.
It marks an important milestone. The term ‘new era’ has become a hackneyed refrain but this facility has the potential to be a game-changing moment for the club. It is their most expensive single outlay yet, surpassing Neymar’s world record transfer fee in 2017 with an overall cost of around €300million.
“I think I’m the first person to have slept here,” joked Luis Enrique at his unveiling last week. “The training centre is marvellous. Comfortable but not luxurious. You have to win matches by the sweat of your brow, so the conditions are good.”
It has taken time to reach this point. The project was first mooted in 2012 but a site was only chosen in 2016 and it took until February 2020 to finally break ground. Comparisons with Manchester City are unavoidable for PSG, another state-backed operation, but the English champions and recent treble winners unveiled their own training centre, the Etihad campus, in 2014.
Advertisement
That has formed the backbone of their transformative success, at senior and youth level, as well as for their women’s team. PSG now have their world-leading facility and while the material value of that is important — it will improve the day-to-day operation of the club and experience of its staff — it is the projection of what the structure conveys that matters. It suggests a serious football operation; something that, amid regular off-field dramas, PSG has not always projected.
The PSG campus is huge in its scale. It is an idyllic setting, in the hills of the River Seine, roughly a 25-minute drive from the Parc des Princes. It covers 74 hectares in total (183 acres), and includes 17 football pitches. It will bring together PSG’s sports clubs onto one site for the first time, not only including the academy with the men’s and women’s team, but their judo and handball sides. This month, only the men’s professional team have moved in, with the academy and women’s team set to move in next year.
The facilities are top-end. This week, Luis Enrique’s squad will begin use of three connected pitches, in addition to separate goalkeeping and training areas. The grass is hybrid — a combination of natural and artificial fibres — and therefore mirrors the Parc des Princes surface. One of the pitches will have a covered stand to accommodate 500 spectators.
Adjacent to the training pitches is the professional sports building. It is 10,000 square metres in size and covered with large windows, with views from its terraces of the entire campus site and the surrounding countryside. From its upper floors, one of which is a dedicated media space, the La Defense district of Paris is visible in the distance. It includes everything the squad will need. There are four therapeutic pools, a fully-equipped gym, restaurant, 32-seat changing room, medical treatment room, performance area for fitness, video and analysis, staff quarters as well as 43 bedrooms for pre-match and post-match recovery.
This is all a world away from the Camp des Loges, the previous training ground, located 10 minutes away in Saint-Germain-En-Laye. PSG first moved into the former French military base in 1970, and while it has offered a space away from the sprawl of Paris, it has faced heavy criticism, including privately from former senior staff. There have been frequent renovations, but it was not seen as adequate for a club seeking top-level status. The academy, first team and women’s team have been on separate sites too.
Advertisement
The rest of the new campus is still to be completed but the scope is vast. The pre-academy and academy will have 16,500 square metres alone. This includes nine dedicated pitches and three distinct buildings. The first is a sporting space, the second for education, including 15 classrooms, and the third is a living quarters. The structure is designed to house 140 young players from ages 13 to 19, with 131 bedrooms. The academy space is under the shadow of the first team, with a walkway leading up flights of steps to the professional building. A link that resembles a rite of passage.
The women’s team will also have their own base here, rather than be moved to the Camp des Loges permanently, which was the initial plan. They will leave Il de la Loge in Bougival for the Camp des Loges before moving to the campus, where they will have use of the professional’s building overlooking the site.
In phase two of the project, there will be two dojos for judo, two courts for handball, five pitches for the PSG Foundation, and later a 5,000-capacity stadium before 2028. The main clubhouse, a glass cube that will act as the centre and entry point for the site, will consist of a cafeteria, a communal restaurant, a library and a 230-seat amphitheatre. There are also 3.5 hectares set aside for vegetable gardens and orchards for the training ground to become self-sufficient. Since 2019, the club have been producing their own vintage of pear juice from 2,800 pear trees. It is available at the Parc des Princes.
“I visited a lot of centres around the world, big clubs and small clubs,” PSG president, Nasser Al-Khelaifi, said at the unveiling. “We tried to be different to the others. We have tried to do something unique. For us it’s one of the best training centres in the world. If you ask me for our best investment since we have been here, it is this.”
Many of PSG’s heavy investments, particularly their signings, have struggled under the spotlight. But for once, there is a unanimous sense that this money spent in Poissy will be valuable in the long run.
While off-field drama continues to rumble in Paris, and cannot be resolved by new bricks and mortar, this is at least one aspect of a new era that does live up to the billing.
(Photos: Getty Images/The Athletic)
