Stadium Overview

The Stade de La Beaujoire - Louis Fonteneau, better known as La Beaujoire, is a stadium in Nantes, France. It is the home of the FC Nantes Atlantique football club.

Stadium History

The stadium opened for the first time on May 8, 1984 for a friendly game: FC Nantes - Romania. It was named after Louis Fonteneau who was President of FC Nantes between 1969 and 1986. It was renovated in 1998 for the World Cup. While its original capacity was 52,923, in 1998 it was converted to an all seater stadium and its current capacity is 38,285. Previously, the team played at Stade Marcel Saupin.

The stadium also hosts international rugby matches, including France against New Zealand (16-3) on November 15, 1986. In September 2007 it hosted three pool matches of the 2007 Rugby World Cup: Wales vs Canada on September 9, England vs Samoa on September 22 and Wales vs Fiji on September 29.

La Beaujoire hosted matches during the 1984 European Football Championship, including a 5-0 victory for France over Belgium. Six matches were also played there during the 1998 FIFA World Cup, including the quarter-final between Brazil and Denmark.

The France national football team have played here on four occasions, most recently 2007 in a EURO 2008 qualifying match against Lithuania (2-0).

Stadium Details

• Date of unveiling: May 8th, 1984 (FC Nantes-Romania, 0-1)
• 1st match championship of France D1: August 17th, 1984 (Nantes-Toulon, 3-1) * Architect: Mr Berdje Agopyan
• Projet introduced by: The modern Construction sites, the society of architecture AIA, the CERA research department
• Breadth centres north-south: 230 m -
• Length centres am west: 200 m -
• Height maximum: 37 m -
• covered Surface: 14 000 m2 -
• Ground: 105 m x 68 m -
• Linear of common bleachers: 18000 m - 600 stadiers and 80 first-aid workers by meeting - used Concrete quantity: 20 000 m3 -
• Number of piles for foundations: 262 -
• Weight of the steel structure and of shells: 2 000 tons
• initial Capacity: 52 923 seatings and standing
• current Capacity: 38 285 seatings

Seating Chart

• Record in championship: 44 297 spectators (FC Nantes-claret, January 27th, 1985)
• Record in European Cup : 40 259 Spectators (FC NANTES-SPARTAK MOSCOU, December 11th, 1985)

Absolute Record: 51 000 spectators (France-Belgium, June 16th, 1984) Complete Inflow: 476 868 in 1999-2000 (average: 28051)

Wordl Cup 98

Getting There

Map

City Information

Area Pubs

Travel Tips

Important Links

Stadium Page

References