Paris FC was born in 1969, though the exact day was not reliably recorded. We celebrate it on 1 August, and on 1 August 2027 the club turns 58. It is the club where the story of Paris Saint-Germain began, and today it plays in Ligue 1 again.

A club created by a poll

In January 1969 the French Football Federation wanted to give Paris a big team. It handed the project to a committee of Fernand Sastre, Henri Patrelle and Guy Crescent. Parisians were asked their views on a ballot, and almost 60,000 answers came back.

The name also came out of that consultation: Paris Football Club. According to the club's history, Santiago Bernabéu advised raising money through a public membership drive. In its first season, 1969-70, Paris FC was a "virtual" club, with no players and no ground.

The mother of Paris Saint-Germain

In June 1970 Paris FC merged with Stade Saint-Germain, and Paris Saint-Germain was born. The marriage lasted just two years. Paris city council offered money in exchange for a more "Parisian" name, and the directors fell out.

The divorce came in 1972. The professional team kept its first-division place under the name Paris FC, while Paris Saint-Germain started again in the third tier. For a while the two clubs also shared the Parc des Princes.

Orange, sky blue and navy

The Paris FC shirt has changed colour many times. After the split it wore the orange of its sponsor Bic until the late 1970s. In 1978 sky blue arrived.

The club's official colour with the Federation is navy blue. Today's home shirt combines navy with sky blue, and the away shirt is white. The adidas shirt for 2026-27 is navy with sky-blue stripes, and the wavy pattern on the collar recalls the city's river.

Since 2011 the badge has been a navy shield with a sky-blue outline. Inside it are a stylised Eiffel Tower and the ship from the Paris coat of arms.

The hard years

The last season in the top flight was 1978-79. The team went down, but that year it also set its attendance record, 41,025 against Saint-Étienne. In the 1980s Jean-Luc Lagardère briefly renamed it "Racing Paris 1", and the club fell as low as the fourth tier.

Decades in the lower leagues and at small grounds followed, such as the Déjerine and later the Stade Charléty. In 2019 the team lost a promotion play-off to Lens on penalties.

The great comeback

In November 2024 the Arnault family took a majority stake, with Red Bull as a minority shareholder. On 2 May 2025 Paris FC sealed promotion to Ligue 1, 46 years on. Its new home became the Stade Jean-Bouin, right across the road from the Parc des Princes.

In 2025-26 it finished 11th and stayed up comfortably. The icing on the cake was beating Paris Saint-Germain, 1-0 in the cup with a goal from Jonathan Ikoné and 2-1 in the league. In January 2026 Ciro Immobile arrived too.

Celebrate with us

From a poll of Parisians to derbies against its own "daughter", Paris FC has written one of the strangest stories in French football.

Happy birthday, Paris FC! May it keep making history in Ligue 1.

See our collectible jerseys at sportarena.gr.

Photo: The Stade Jean-Bouin in Paris – Chabe01, Wikimedia Commons, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.