French soccer giants Paris Saint-Germain’s (PSG) president Nasser Al Khelaifi has confirmed that the club will try to leave the Parc des Princes stadium after Paris’ city council confirmed that the stadium was not for sale.

This comes after PSG also ended their interest in purchasing France’s iconic Stade de France, with the club set to explore other options in its search to expand its home.

The Parisian side wanted to buy the Parc des Princes outright to expand it and increase matchday revenue. The plan had been to expand the stadium’s capacity from around 48,000 to 60,000, having already invested around €75 million in upgrades ahead of the Euro 2016 national teams tournament, which also increased their matchday and VIP capacity, however, these investments will now cease.

The club consistently sells out the stadium for its games, exceeding $150 million in stadium revenue for the 2022-23 fiscal year.

Paris City Council owns the Parc des Princes, and Paris mayor, Anne Hidalgo, reaffirmed in an interview with Ouest France that while they would support transformations to the ground, “there will be no sale of the Parc des Princes”. This was then confirmed in a city council vote.

Speaking to reporters at UEFA’s executive committee meeting in Paris on Thursday, Al Khelaifi said: “It’s easier for us now, we know what we want. It’s finished for us.”

At a media session in London, PSG chief revenue officer Marc Armstrong also stressed how the Parc des Princes is too small for PSG and limiting the club's commercial opportunities. 

He said: “48,000 is not enough. We have the highest revenue per seat in Europe as of last season, and we’ll be there or thereabouts again this season, but we can do a lot more with a bigger stadium and we should be playing in front of 60,000 or 70,000 fans every week.

“We've been forced to look at other options and that's how we see it. We don't want to move. We want to stay at the Parc des Princes but we have to look and have been looking seriously at other options for the last year.”

PSG have played their home games at the Parc des Princes since they first reached the French top tier in 1974, and the club had already agreed a 30-year extension to their stadium lease in 2013.

The club has said that they have arranged an emergency meeting with their stadium team to begin the process of what to do next.