Stade Français home venue Stade Jean-Bouin
Home grounds
The team's home stadium is Stade Jean-Bouin which has a capacity of 20,000. Before expansion in 2011, the capacity was 12,000, seen as too small for some major European games during the first decade of the new millennium. Then Club President Guazzini made a decision to take a European quarter final match against Newcastle to the significantly larger Parc des Princes, which is literally across the street from Stade Jean-Bouin. Guazzini booked the national stadium of France, the 80,000 Stade de France for a Top 14 fixture against Toulouse. The move was successful, with 79,502 officially turning up for the game, smashing the regular season attendance record in France. At the end of the match, Guazzini announced that he had booked the venue for the Biarritz match – a rematch of the 2004–05 final. Stade Français drew an even larger crowd to the game (79,604), toppling the previous record set that same season.
After a period of much speculation, the match was taken to the Stade Charléty, remaining in Paris. On 14 October 2006, the record was broken for the third time in a row (79,619) for a championship tie against Biarritz. Stade Français booked Parc des Princes for a Heineken Cup showdown with the Sale Sharks on 10 December 2006 and drew 44,100 to see Stade win 27–16. On 27 January 2007, Stade Français set yet another French attendance record by drawing 79,741 to Stade de France for their 22–20 win over Toulouse. Stade Français played their opening match of the 2007–08 season at Stade de France against Clermont; they failed to set a national attendance record this time, but still drew 75,620. On 22 March 2008, they played their home match against Toulouse at Stade de France for the third straight season, and set yet another record with 79,779 in attendance. The 2007–08 season marked the first time that Stade Français played a third regular-season match at Stade de France, as they booked the venue for their 7 June match with Biarritz; they drew 79,544 for that match.In 2008–09, they played four home matches at Stade de France—their Top 14 home fixtures against Toulouse, Perpignan and Clermont, plus a Heineken Cup pool match against Harlequins. They scheduled five Top 14 matches at Stade de France in 2009–10—Perpignan, Bayonne, Biarritz, Toulouse, and Clermont. In the upcoming 2010–11 season, the number of Top 14 matches at Stade de France will return to three, namely Toulon, Toulouse, and Clermont.
In the 2000s Stade Français has also taken some matches to another Paris ground, Stade Charléty, whose capacity of 20,000 was larger than that of Jean-Bouin at the time. In 2009–10, they played their home leg of the Paris derby with Racing Métro there, and made that stadium their regular home for the 2010–11 season while Jean-Bouin was being renovated.
Stade Français also planned to take their home 2009–10 Heineken Cup pool match against Ulster to Belgium at King Baudouin Stadium in Brussels, but heavy snowfall on the intended matchday forced the fixture to be moved to Stade Jean-Bouin.
Home field Stadium location Venue of residence Home pitch Residential ground