The match could not be played at Le Puy because the Massot stadium of which Puy Foot is resident is not up to standard, and also presented a problem in terms of video assistance for the refereeing. The reversal of the match had been considered for a while, but playing at the Stade Geoffroy-Guichard was the first choice of the Altiligerian leaders.
“It’s the choice of the heart,” Christophe Gauthier, the president of the club, declared during a press conference, who had ruled out the possibility of playing in Clermont-Ferrand where the stadium is under construction. The cost of this relocation to Saint-Etienne will be 150,000 euros for Le Puy Foot. The club would have made a better financial transaction by playing in Rennes, but it was “out of the question to deprive the supporters of this historic moment”.
This is the first time in its history that the team has reached the quarter-finals of the Coupe de France. In the previous round, the Altiligerians eliminated Laval (L2) 2 to 1.