When it comes to the big European clubs around Europe, Paris Saint-Germain is considered a young club since it was founded in 1970. Despite it being 50 years old, the Ligue 1 side has a lot of history, and recently one of the founding members of the French giant died.
The Agence France-Presse (via Paris Fans) announced that Jean-Paul Belmondo passed away at 88. Belmondo notably participated in the rebirth of PSG in 1973. Les Parisiens were on the brink of the abyss following the split with Paris FC.
Former PSG president Henri Patrelle was looking for investors so that the recently formed club, which had just entered Division 2 following the famous split a year earlier, can stay there. Daniel Hechter, accompanied by Francis Borelli, Belmondo, Guy Bossant, Charles Talar, and Jacques Bloch, invested in the project to get PSG off the ground.
“Our national “Bébel”, who will forever remain one of the favorite actors of the French, was passionate about football, a sport that he practiced assiduously for a long time as a goalkeeper,” PSG said in a statement.
The group would become known as the “pink shirt gang,” the nickname given by the French press to this group of friends, who finally took over the club on June 15, 1973.
