Stade Rennais open Piverdière 2: the Pinault family’s €40m training centre

Stade Rennais opened their rebuilt training centre at La Piverdière on Friday, just before midday. In front of 400 guests, François Pinault cut the ribbon; his son François-Henri spoke, alongside Rennes mayor Nathalie Appéré, French federation president Philippe Diallo and head coach Franck Haise. The site is named after Henri Guérin.

Fifteen hectares, paid for by the Pinaults

The campus now covers 15 hectares: eight pitches, a 460 m² gym, a residence with 43 beds, hydrotherapy, catering and schooling, in roughly 9,000 m² of new buildings. First team, academy and administration now share one site; for a coach, that daily contact between young players and professionals is worth more than any speech. Work started in 2023 and cost €40m, paid in full from the Pinault family’s own funds.

“It is a major investment, in line with our ambition for our professional team and also for our academy,” François-Henri Pinault said. Pierre Juhel, who oversaw the project, goes further: “We are clearly at the scale of a Champions League club. There is nothing like it in France apart from PSG, who play in a different sphere.” Philippe Diallo noted that eight of the 22 players called up by France trained at Rennes or played there.

The stadium can wait

Club president Arnaud Pouille is already looking further ahead: “We also need a stadium that matches what you want to become. That would be the next step.” That project is stuck: the town hall favours renovating Roazhon Park, priced beyond €100m, and the Pinaults would not fund it alone.

On the pitch, Rennes sit fifth in Ligue 1 and are back in Europe this season. The league resumes for them on 11 October with a home game against Auxerre.