Forget Messi and Mbappe - can Habib Beye become the brightest star in French league football?
In Paris, football is big business.
Images of Mbappe, Messi and Neymar are hard to avoid, but at the other end of the city’s footballing spectrum, the world’s oldest football club is on the brink of history.
And it’s largely thanks to a former Premiership full back who became a manager almost by accident.
Habib Beye was named assistant manager at non-league Red Star FC - formed by Jules Rimet in 1897 - in May 2021. Six months later, the ex-Newcastle and Villa man ended up in charge of the first team after manager Vincent Bordot was sacked. At the time, Beye didn't have the relevant coaching badges and Red Star were fined for every game he took charge of.
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Now they are one game from a return to Ligue 2 and the chance to propel the cult club into the big time.
Red Star sit in tnird place of the National League, on 57 points, level with fourth place Martigues. Concarneau and Dunkirk share top spot on 59 points. Two of the four will go up.
Beye, who also played in the 2002 World Cup for Senegal, is part of a backroom team that also includes ex-Premier League strikers Steve Marlet and David Bellion, tasked with reviving the fortunes of Red Star under the guidance and masterplan of film director Patrice Haddad. The former Marseiille man was nominated for National League coach of the year in France, after imposing an attacking, entertaining style on his team. His stock is on the rise.
Bellion is creative director - not a job you often see in football, and his role is to 'build bridges between Red Star and the worlds of culture, art and lifestyle.'
The club - much like its Saint-Ouen surroundings - is in the process of significant change. The street-level shabby cool is getting a glow up, and hip hotels, bars and restaurants are starting to dot around the stadium. Young, creative Parisiens are moving into the area, attracted to the Red Star way of life.
On the day I visit, ahead of a crucial clash with Cholet, the local newspaper leads with the news that PSG is trying to buy the Stade De France after being refused a deal for the Parc De Princes, where they currently play. It is high stakes politics, with the club calling the shots. The fans don’t seem to be part of the conversation at all. C’est la vie.
Red Star’s Stade Bauer stadium, however, which sits squarely in the middle of the up and coming arrondissement, is being redeveloped into a state of the art 10,000 capacity stadium. It very nearly moved to a different site outside the area, until plans fell through and the decision was made to make the most of what they had. Part of the plan is the Bauer Box, a permanent facility for the many community projects the club runs throughout the year.
What they have currently, however, is a building site with floodlights, but a lively one at that. The 2,500 fans that flock to each home game make the noise of 25,000. The atmosphere here is relentlessly passionate. Saint-Ouen on match day crackles with energy and positivity. Without redevelopment, the club wouldn't have been able to play in Ligue 2 here. When they last played at that level, in 2015, they were forced to play home games at Beauvais, which as anyone who has had the misfortune of a Ryanair flight home from there know, is over an hour's drive from Paris.
Red Star is hard-wired into almost everything around here - from l’Olympique bar across the road (the owner was one of the kit models last season), to the local flea markets, where the club recently held a treasure hunt to find Red Star goodies. The club’s kit is sponsored by LinkedOut, an organisation that supports and reintegrates marginalised people. The club runs free soccer camps for local school kids.
The impressive Red Star LAB also works with the club's academy kids to give them education, skills and access to creative projects around the club, all for free. So far it was worked with 800 local people and won two awards for it’s community work. It’s a point of pride for the club and examples of the work it does is everywhere around the stadium.
Everything about Red Star is impressively community focused, in fact. Often, the football has been secondary. The Red Star IPA often sells out on match days, but if it doesn’t, the price of a pint comes down after the final whistle. Thats how the fans like it - in fact, they demand it as their point of difference from PSG and the money that has flooded in from the Middle East.
A year ago, Red Star was bought by US equity group 777 Partners. The firm, which already owns stakes in Genoa, Vasco De Gaia, Standard Liege and Hertha Berlin, is reportedly eyeing Everton too, and is a growing player in the global multi-club franchise model of sports ownership.
The takeover was a pain point for some fans, but the club says it will do everything it can to hold onto the tight relationship with the community which has defined its personality - and popularity. There are plans to freeze the cheapest ticket price - €7 - for the fans who have been coming the longest, once the stadium facelift is finished in 2025.
777 has so far, according to the club, been largely hands off in the day to day and is working on the redevelopment as a springboard to stabilising in Ligue 2.
Red Star has 32 separate teams, many of them aimed at kids and young talent. The area has fine footballing pedigree - Mbappe was born here, but the club’s yo-yoing status in and out of the league has hampered its ability to develop a workable academy and hang on to their best young players. The rules of French football are restrictive around professional contracts outside of the two top leagues.
The club’s academy - in nearby Marvile - will be redeveloped into a centre of excellence. Red Star will be keen to hang on to rising stars like 21-year-old Jovany Ikanga - top scorer this term and part of the club since arriving as a kid 14 years ago - as well as produce more like him.
Ikanga only turned pro this season and Beye is confident he can cut it at a higher level - with Red Star 'or maybe somewhere else.' That path may well depend on Friday's result. At the other end of the dressing room, Friday could be a happy final act for 37-year-old Cheikh N'Doiye, formerly of Birmingham City.
Red Star’s cult status has attracted headlines - and fans - from all over the world. It’s a football tourism hotspot and a club that prides itself on collaboration, whether that’s working with local kids to make personalised club jerseys and t-shirts, or engaging ultra cool brands like Kappa and Zero Guidance on its official kits.
Like it or not, it’s already a brand as well as a community club. Red Star’s community is changing however - global is joining local, both wanting success on the pitch. The iconic triangular building that looms over one end of the stadium is affordable social housing. A constant and looming reminder of the club’s community-first roots and their ability to access it at a reasonable price.
Friday night’s final game of the season could be a watershed moment for the future of the club as well as the town.
For Beye, Bellion et al, the challenge will be keeping the spirit of the club front and centre as they chase the success the owners - and fans - so badly crave. Their motives might differ but the endgame is the same. This is not the time for Red Star's warring factions to tear themselves apart.
Change is coming for Red Star. How much all depends on Friday night in the Bauer. Even though it may claim to be the world's oldest club, the Red Star story is only just beginning.
Simon Binns