Marseille

The Orange Vélodrome sits above the Prado district and has held Marseille since 1937, when the club left the old Stade de l'Huveaune for a ground.

The club that plays there did not start as a football side. It grew out of a multi-sport organisation founded by René Dufaure de Montmirail, and it took the name Olympique when the statutes were registered on 31 August 1899, a nod to the Greeks of Phocaea who had settled Marseille centuries earlier — the same reference that gave the club its nickname, Les Phocéens.

It closed with a 1-0 win over AC Milan in the 1993 European Cup final, the only time a French club has taken that trophy. Jean-Pierre Papin scored through the Tapie years and left as the club's record scorer with 182 goals; Marcel Desailly, part of that same side, went on to win the World Cup with France in 1998.

There is more to the record book than that one European night. Marseille were the first provincial side to win the Coupe de France, in 1924, and have taken the French league nine times since their maiden professional title in 1937. Stretches away from the top have followed too, including six years outside the top flight after relegation in 1959.

Ownership passed to the American businessman Frank McCourt in 2016, who bought 95% of the club.