Ligue 1

Ligue 1 is the top flight of French club football and was officially founded in 1932 but has been known as ‘Ligue 1’ since 2002. The league is contested by 20 teams who play a total of 38 games over the season. 3 teams are relegated every season when finishing in the bottom 3 positions and are replaced by the top 3 teams from Ligue 2.

Stadium Capacity

France has a number of top stadiums and Marseille’s Stade Velodrome has the top capacity for any club side in the country at 67,394 while Dijon have the lowest at 15,995.
Olympique Marseille Stade Vélodrome 67 394
Olympique Lyon Parc Olympique Lyonnais 59 186
Lille OSC Grand Stade Lille Métropole 50 157
Paris Saint Germain Parc des Princes 48 700
Girondins Bordeaux Nouveau Stade de Bordeaux 42 115
AS Saint-Étienne Stade Geoffroy Guichard 41 148
FC Nantes Stade de la Beaujoire 38 285
OGC Nice Allianz Riviera 35 624
Toulouse FC Stadium Municipal 35 472
Montpellier HSC Stade de la Mosson 32 900
Stade Rennes Roazhon Park 29 778
FC Metz Municipal Saint Symphorien 26 671
SM Caen Stade Michel d’Ornano 21 500
AS Nancy Lorraine Stade Marcel Picot 20 087
FC Lorient Stade Yves Allainmat 18 500
AS Monaco Stade Louis II 18 500
EA Guingamp Stade du Roudourou 18 126
Angers SCO Stade Jean Bouin 18 000
SC Bastia Stade Armand Cesari 17 000
Dijon FCO Stade Gaston Gérard 15 995

Most successful teams

Saint Etienne are the team with the most titles with 10 while Lyon hold the record for the most consecutive titles on 7. The highest number of points for any championship winning side was gathered by PSG in the 2015/16 season when they got 96 points.

Coverage

Ligue 1 is broadcast in France by Canal+ and beIN Sports. There are also a number of deals that see the league beamed around the world via the likes of BT Sport in the UK and beINSports in Spain. The league is also popular in countries like Japan and across the continent of Africa.

Transfers

The highest transfer fee received by a Ligue 1 team was in the 2014/15 season when James Rodriguez moved from Monaco to Real Madrid for £63.75m. The highest transfer fee paid by a Ligue 1 side was in the 2013/14 season when PSG paid Napoli £54.83m for Edinson Cavani.

Players Records

With 618 appearances in Ligue 1 Mickael Landreau holds the record for the most games in Ligue 1. The top scorer in the history of the league is former Monaco, Reims, Tours and Toulon striker Delio Onnis who scored 299 goals from 1971 to 1986.
The player to have scored the most goals in a single season is Josip Skoblar who netted 44 times in the 1970/71 season.

Fanbase

The average attendances for the 2016/17 season up to March 19th were 20.513 with each individual attendances as follows –
1 Paris Saint-Germain 45.197
2 Olympique Lyon 38.646
3 Olympique Marseille 36.732
4 Lille OSC 29.505
5 AS Saint-Étienne 26.345
6 Girondins Bordeaux 23.346
7 FC Nantes 22.854
8 Stade Rennes 22.565
9 OGC Nice 21.881
10 AS Nancy 17.209
11 Toulouse FC 16.093
12 FC Metz 15.606
13 SM Caen 15.369
14 EA Guingamp 14.753
15 Montpellier HSC 11.946
16 Angers SCO 11.294
17 FC Lorient 11.006
18 SC Bastia 10.393
19 Dijon FCO 9.633
20 AS Monaco 8.986

International Football

The French National team have been on the go since 1904 and played out a 3-3 draw against Belgium for their first ever game on May 1^st of that year.

France compete in the European Championships as well as the World Cup finals which are both held every 4 years, intermittently every 2 years.

France have qualified for the World Cup Finals a total of 14 times and have won it once in 1998 when the tournament was hosted in France.

After topping their group with a 100% record against Denmark, South Africa and Saudia Arabia, France went on to defeat Paraguay, Ital and Croatia to reach the final where they would meet Brazil.

In a game that made headlines for the wrong reasons when reports of a breakdown from global megastar Ronaldo came out, France made sure they sent their fans home happy. 2 Goals from Zidane and a last minute Emmanuel Petit goal saw France run out 3-0 winners in front of 80,000 jubilant fans at the Stade de France.

Frances record in the European Championships is slightly better with two titles won in 1984 and 2000. The victory in the tournament which was hosted in the Netherlands and Belgium was hard fought. It took a 93 minute Sylvain Wiltord equaliser against Ital in the finals to see the match into extra time where David Trezeguet netted the winner.

The player with the most amount of caps for the French National team is Lilian Thuram who amassed a total of 142 caps between 31994 and 2008. The player with the most goals for France is Thierry Henry who scored 51 in 123 games.