To the uninitiated, the Trophée des Champions is Ligue 1’s equivalent of the Premier League’s FA Community Shield. It’s a pre-season tournament between the league champions and Coupe de France champion. Typically, the match is played before the season, but for the 2025-26 campaign, Paris Saint-Germain and Olympique de Marseille will play mid-season on January 8 from Kuwait City, Kuwait.
Such a marquee matchup, with a trophy on the line, deserves a stage all to itself. Football fans often overlook Ligue 1, and French football needs to take every opportunity to promote its top league and teams. The first change should be to the calendar, moving the match to late July or early August. The second would be to play the game in North America, home to CasinoBonusCa.
While the U.S. market is a popular destination for Premier League clubs during the summer, the Ligue de Football Professionnel (LFP) could head north to Canada and work to build a larger fanbase there.
The Trophée des Champions has been played in Canada twice in its history. In fact, outside of France, Canada and Morocco have hosted the competition the most times. The Stade Olympique in Montreal, Canada, hosted the 2009 match between Bordeaux and Guingamp, and the Stade Saputo in Montreal, Canada, hosted Paris Saint-Germain and Olympique Lyonnais in 2015.
So, the precedent is there. In each of the matches, fans turned out in droves. The 2009 match drew 34,000 supporters, and in 2015, 20,000 fans attended.
With a large French-speaking population, Montreal makes a lot of sense as a host city for the Trophée des Champions several times in the future. If PSG were to feature in the match, which is almost a guarantee every season, fan clubs from New York and Toronto could easily make the trip to support their club.
Currently, the competition travels across Europe and Asia and is held at various times throughout the year. Fans benefit when they can plan their travel. Picking a host city and planning a date will help more fans get to the game and create the kind of atmosphere that other top European leagues have. Premier League fans know that the FA Community Shield will always be at Wembley Stadium and will be the first game before the season starts. Ligue 1 and French football would benefit from that consistency. Creating new fans in Canada, a country that will host the 2026 FIFA World Cup with the U.S. and Mexico, could help grow the popularity of the French league.
