Le Mans FC

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Le Mans FC
LeMansFC-2010.png
Basic data
Surname Le Mans Football Club
Seat Le Mans , France
founding 1902
president Thierry Gomez
Website lemansfc.fr
First soccer team
Head coach Richard Déziré
Venue MMArena
Places 25,000
league National (D3)
2019/20   19th place ( Ligue 2 )
home
Away

The Le Mans Football Club or shortly Le Mans FC is a French football club from the city of Le Mans in western France Sarthe .

For many years, the Stade Léon-Bollée was the venue for the club's home games before the footballers moved to the newly built MMArena in 2011 , which can seat 25,000 spectators. After relegating to the amateur camp, the Le Clos-Fleuri sports complex, with around 5,000 seats, was sufficient. The club's president is Jean-Pierre Pasquier. In 2019, the club was promoted to Ligue 2 and played its home games again in the MMArena.

history

Stade Léon-Bollée (2007)

The club was founded in 1889 as Union Sportive du Mans , but the football department has only existed since 1902. In 1985 there was a merger with Stade Olympique du Maine , from which the club colors red and yellow were also taken over. The new club was called Le Mans Union Club 72 , with 72 referring to the administrative number of the Sarthe department. The association was renamed in July 2010 for marketing reasons; for this, the coat of arms was changed and a "thoroughbred horse" (according to the official description) previously unknown in the heraldry of the club's history was added to the symbolism.

It was only in the middle of World War II (1942) that Le Mans managed to qualify for professional league operations (in the occupied zone of France), but only stayed there until 1945. The Le Mans UC was again for the first time in 2003/04 and from 2005 to 2010 in the top division ( Division 1 , called Ligue 1 since 2002 ).

The move to the MMArena took place in January 2011. This multifunctional arena is named after the Mutuelles du Mans Assurances insurance company , which pays € 10 million over ten years for the naming rights. This is the first name sponsorship of a football stadium in France. During the season, the club ran into considerable financial difficulties (debt around 7.5 million euros), so President Legarda asked the city fathers for financial support. In summer 2013 the deficit had risen to 14.4 million euros, so that the club was administratively relegated to the fourth division ; after the FC could not prevail on several sports court levels, he even entered 2013/14 only in the Division d'Honneur , i.e. at the sixth highest league level. Here, however, the promotion to the CFA2 could be achieved directly.

Old club crest

successes

player

Women's soccer

The footballers of the club played from 1995 to 1997 and - after winning the French second division league title in 2010 - in the 2010/11 season in each class and also were so far the only Zweitdivisionär 2009 in the final of the national cup competition . (As of August 2015)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. FRANCE 3 - Le stade du Mans s'appellera-t-il ”MMA”? - France 3 Ouest ( Memento des Originals of January 27, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / ouest.france3.fr
  2. see the article "Out for Le Mans?" Of March 24, 2013 at francefootball.fr