Stade Geoffroy-Guichard

Stade Geoffroy-Guichard is a multi-purpose stadium in Saint-Étienne, France. It is used primarily for football matches, and tournaments such as the 1984 European Football Championship, the Football World Cup 1998 and the Confederations Cup 2003. It is also used for rugby union, and was a venue at the 2007 Rugby World Cup. It is nicknamed "le Chaudron" (the Cauldron), or "l'enfer vert" (the Green Hell), an allusion to the colours worn by the local football team, the AS Saint-Étienne, given during the team's heyday when it drew particularly large crowds (the record being set in 1985, with more than 47,000 spectators). More recently, its current capacity was 35,616 before the current renovations, which began in 2011 and have temporarily reduced this figure to 26,747. When the renovations are finished, the stadium will hold 40,830 seated spectators. The stadium opened on September 13, 1931, and AS Saint-Étienne's first match there took place on September 17 against FAC Nice. The stadium was named after Geoffroy Guichard, founder of the Casino retail group, who purchased the site on which it was built.