Palais des Sports Jean-François Krakowski

The Palais des Sports Jean-François Krakowski sits quietly at Rue des Châtaigniers in Saint-Raphaël. It is a handball arena, not a football ground, but for the local handball club it is everything.

The hall opened in 2005 as the Palais des Sports intercommunal, before the name changed in 2011 to honour Jean-François Krakowski, the club’s long-serving president. The parquet floor is standard issue. Seats run to 2,500 after the renovation in 2017, a figure that replaced an older estimate of 2,000. The club Saint-Raphaël Var Handball treats the place as its home, playing out games in the LNH Star League and European competitions under the same roof.

European nights are significant. The club reached the Final Four of the EHF Cup in the 2017–2018 season, and the hall hosted qualification matches for the EHF European League, including a fixture against Mors-Thy in 2024. The roof has not sheltered a Champions League Final Four, but it has seen enough to keep the town talking. Cup matches draw crowds of around 800, yet enough to fill the aisles.

There is no record of a single highest attendance, and no basketball team calls the place home, though the hall does open its doors for occasional matches. The building does not boast of history in the way that older grounds do. It is a working space.