Latest news with #GroupamaStadium
CNA
19-05-2025
- Business
- CNA
Olympique Lyonnais Feminin renamed to OL Lyonnes
Olympique Lyonnais Feminin, the most successful women's soccer team in the world, have changed their name to OL Lyonnes, majority owner Michele Kang said on Monday. The new name honours the club's membership of the OL family and their roots in the city of Lyon, they said in a statement. "The subtle change from 'Lyonnais' to 'Lyonnes' underlines the club's all-female identity," the club added. All their home matches will now be staged at the 59,186-seater Groupama Stadium from the 2025-26 season. The stadium was previously only used by the men's team, Olympique Lyonnais. The women's side, who have won a record eight Champions League titles and were recently crowned Premiere Ligue champions for the 18th time, will also have a new logo for next season. "This new chapter for OL Lyonnes goes far beyond a simple change of name and logo - it's about redefining what's possible in women's football," Kang said. "Our ambition is to set a new global benchmark for excellence, ambition and investment in women's football. This transformation fully embodies our commitment to offer the best to our players, staff and supporters."
The Guardian
19-05-2025
- Sport
- The Guardian
Lyon Women change name and get training base ‘better than most men's centres'
The French champions Olympique Lyonnais Féminin have been renamed as OL Lyonnes, as part of a series of announcements made by their owner, Michele Kang. The American businesswoman has also revealed the team will make the Groupama Stadium – home of the Lyon men's team – their regular home stadium. Kang said other mid-sized stadium alternatives, including a local rugby stadium, were explored before they reached the conclusion that the stadium that hosted the 2019 Women's World Cup final is the best venue for them. The record eight-time women's European champions will also be moving to a new training centre, swapping existing sites with the Lyon boys' academy, and renovating that training base to be a bespoke 'performance campus' built and designed specifically for female athletes, which Kang said she will personally finance. 'It's not going to be cheap,' she said but declined to disclose exactly how much will be spent on the new, state-of-the-art base, which will include a statue of their captain Wendie Renard. 'This is going to be better than most men's teams's training centres,' Kang said at a press conference on Monday. 'It's actually amazing the team achieved the amount of success it has with the amount of resources allocated to them [previously].' On Friday the team won their 18th French women's top-flight title, their fourth in a row, defeating Paris Saint-Germain 3-0 in the playoff final, thanks to goals from Renard, Melchie Dumornay and Kadidiatou Diani. Their new name is linked to the French spelling of the word 'Lionesses' (Lionnes) but with the i swapped to be a letter y in order to reference the city of Lyon, said Kang, who also owns the newly promoted English independent women's club London City Lionesses and the NWSL club Washington Spirit. 'This new chapter for OL Lyonnes is about more than a new name and logo,' said Kang, who also unveiled a new logo for the rebranded team, which features a Lioness on its new crest. 'It's about redefining what's possible in women's football. Our vision is to set the global standard for excellence, ambition and investment in the women's game. On their stadium search, Kang said: 'We concluded that not only our players deserve the best playing environment, our fans deserve that [too]. We did look at other alternatives, because we all agree, from day one, filling out a 57,000-seater stadium is not possible. For big games we absolutely have aspirations to sell out but not all games are going to be like that.'
Washington Post
19-05-2025
- Sport
- Washington Post
Lyon women's team set for a new name and higher attendances under ambitious owner Kang
As an ambitious multi-club owner Michele Kang wants to see Lyon back at the very top of European women's soccer, and important steps are being taken to achieve that. From next season the women's team will play all matches at the 59,000-capacity Groupama Stadium, sharing it with the men's side rather than occasionally playing there. The following season, the women's team will have their own state-of-the-art training campus.
