It looks like the threats of Jean-Michel Aulas to quit if the city continued to deadlock Lyon's plans for a new stadium have finally forced the city leaders into committing to Project OL Land, now scheduled to be completed on June 2013.

The agreement was signed by six parties: Olympique Lyonnais, the State, the department of the Rhone region, Grand Lyon (the greater agglomeration of Lyon), the city of Decines, and Systral (in charge of transporation in Lyon).

It's international week, so things are rather quiet on the Lyon front. Here's what's been going on:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Fabio Grosso is back in training and is expected to play against Lille on October 18th. This is good news because if he does well, he play against Steaua a few days later.

Fabio Grosso's week isn't getting any better. Last weekend, he was verbally abused by Strasbourg coach Jean-Marc Furlan for being a "piece of macaroni shit." Today, during Lyon's 2-2 draw against Caen, Grosso was sent off, the third Lyon player to be red carded this year.

This morning, Forbes published a list of the top ten "Super-Stadiums" that are in the process of being built. Of the ten, four of them will be football stadiums, and only two of them will be located outside the United States, the home to all things grand and excessive.

The mother ship has landed.

Hey, just because it's January doesn't mean that the only thing Lyon care about is the mercato! At least Aulas hasn't forgotten. Project OL Land is going full speed ahead. Today, he presented more stadium information at a press conference, and even more interesting, the results of weeks of polling in the Decines area, where the stadium will be built.

Anytime I get depressed about something related to Lyon, I look at the artistic renderings of the new stadium. It's such a pick-me-upper.

Today, Lyon unveiled the official website of Project OL Land, which will feature press releases, news, important information, and of course, a lot of high-res pictures. According to the new information, the exact number of seats is 61556 though operating capacity will be something like 58000-60000.

Today, OL Groupe published information on the club's economic situation for the 2006/2007 season. And naturally, it's tres tres positive. If you want to read the report in its entirety, go here. But since I adore math and numbers so much, I will offer you guys a much more condensed and easier to understand overview.

The reason I'm even bothering to report this (to my knowledge, I'm the only blogger on the Offside who even cares about club finances) is because economic development is responsible for Lyon being where it is - and where it will be in the next few years (read a more thorough overview on club finances here).