PARIS LIGHTS ENTER THE AFLE ERA AS A NEW FRANCHISE BUILT BY PEOPLE WHO ALREADY KNOW HOW TO WIN
Built from the ground up, the Paris Lights enter the inaugural American Football League Europe season with a coaching staff that includes a two-time champion, a quarterback who won a national title in Canada, and a roster that mixes experienced American professionals with the best French homegrown talent the country has to offer.
The Paris Lights enter the AFLE era with one goal: the AFLE Gold Bowl 2026. For a first-year team, they are built like they have been here before.
Head Coach David Shelton Brings Championship Culture to Paris
David Shelton Sr. was the first signing in franchise history and the head coach brings experience as both a former player and coach.
A former safety at City College of San Francisco and Fresno State, Shelton spent time in the CFL with the Edmonton Elks before moving into coaching. His career has taken him through high school football in California, including a stint at Justin-Siena High School in Napa, where he was part of a program that won a national championship, through college coaching at Santa Barbara City College, and ultimately to the professional game in Europe. His most recent head coaching role came with the European team Barcelona Dragons, where he gained direct experience of exactly the demands he will face in the AFLE.
What Shelton has been given in Paris is rare for a first-year club: time, trust, and the right people around him. His mandate is not just to win games. It is to build the identity of a franchise from scratch and to install standards, establish culture, and make the Paris Lights a club that the city can believe in. The appointment signals exactly how the organization wants to be seen: not as an experiment, but as a serious project.
Timur Beckmann’s first job as an offensive coordinator is in Paris
If there is one appointment that tells you everything about the ambitions of the Paris Lights, it is Timur Beckmann.
Beckmann is one of the most accomplished German coaches of his generation. He won back-to-back ELF championships with Rhein Fire, the same two titles that make Rhein Fire the most decorated team in this league, and arrives in Paris for the first time holding the keys to an entire offense. It is his first role as a head playcaller, and the trust the Lights have placed in him is a direct statement about what they expect from their first season.
His approach is built on balance. Run game and passing game treated as equals, with clear structural frameworks that allow players to play fast and express themselves within the system. His time at Rhein Fire showed what that looks like in practice: multiple scoring threats, a disciplined running game, and an offense that wins the field position battle as often as it wins the scoring battle. In Paris, he gets to build it from day one.
Evan Hillock is About to Write the First Chapter of Paris Lights History
The Paris Lights found their quarterback. And they found a good one. Evan Hillock is 22 years old and has already won it all in Canada. Now he gets to write the first page of a professional career in one of the great football markets in Europe.
Hillock attended the University of Western Ontario and what followed was one of the most decorated careers in Canadian university football: 45 victories, 90 touchdown passes, and 11,846 passing yards. Additionally, he led the mustangs to a national championship.
The signal caller arrives in Paris under the AFLE’s new International Import designation, a rule that for the first time classifies players from Canada, Mexico, and Japan as non-American for roster purposes. He is the first player in franchise history to sign under that rule, and his arrival immediately gives the Lights a level of starting quarterback talent that most expansion teams spend years trying to find.
Tristen Wallace Brings Big-Play Production to the Paris Receiving Corps
Tristen Wallace is the first American import the Paris Lights have signed, and he arrives with a résumé that would stand up on any European roster. After starting his college career at the University of Oregon, he transferred to Prairie View A&M University, where he recorded 78 receptions for 1,114 receiving yards and six touchdowns across two seasons. His professional career has taken him to the USFL with the Sea Lions and to Mexico’s Liga de Fútbol Americano Profesional with the Monterrey Osos, where he earned MVP honors, an Offensive Player of the Year award, and an All-Pro selection.
Wallace is not a developmental project. He is a professional wide receiver who has been excellent in every environment he has entered, and he gives Timur Beckmann’s offense an immediate deep threat and contested-catch option that defenses will have to account for on every single snap.
Alongside Wallace, wide receiver Enzo Plumain arrives fresh off a championship season with the Mets Meteores in the French D2, and wide receiver Alexandre Agnimel adds proven production from the Fédération Française de Football Américain with the Grizzlys Catalans. Together, the three give Hillock options at every level of the field and give French fans players they already know and have rooted for.
A French Backfield: A Ground Game to Build Around
The Lights intend to run the ball and Jean-Charles Moukouri makes sure they can.
The 31-year-old French running back has already spent four seasons in the ELF and brings the kind of physical, experienced presence that a first-year offensive line needs in order to function. He is familiar with European professional football, familiar with what it takes to perform at this level week after week, and directly connected to the French football community that this franchise is trying to represent.
As a backup he totalled 165 carries for 666 rushing yards, averaging four yards per carry.
The offensive line is built around players with professional pedigree. Thomas Bertrand brings experience from the Berlin Thunder, one of the most established programs in European football. Center Elvys Nuñez arrives via the Spanish solidarity rule with five seasons of ELF experience from the Madrid Bravos. The combination gives Beckmann a functional, professional interior that is built to protect Hillock and open gaps for Moukouri.
A defense anchored by experience and built to compete from day one
Defensive back Exavier Edwards has seen every offensive formation, anticipated every route combination, and survived every pressure moment that a long European career can produce. At 34, he is exactly the kind of player a first-year secondary needs.
Edwards played college football at Saddleback College and Midland University before spending years at the highest levels of European professional football. His career has taken him through the ODTÜ Falcons, the Black Panthers de Thonon, and the New Yorker Lions, before a significant stint with the Vienna Vikings, where he won a championship and established himself as one of the defining figures in their secondary. Most recently he played for the Nordic Storm before a season-ending injury cut his campaign short.
In Paris, his experience does not just benefit him individually. It anchors the entire secondary, giving younger players around him a reference point and a standard to reach every day in practice. The combination of Edwards’s football IQ and his big-play instincts give the Paris defense the foundation it needs to be competitive, even in a first season.
From Virginia Tech to the NFL and back to Europe
If there is one player in the Paris Lights roster who carries a story that goes beyond football, it is Wilfried Pene.
The 25-year-old defensive lineman from Tours came to the sport late, picking up American football at 14. His talent was undeniable from the start. At St. Thomas More Prep he was a two-time All-New England selection, posting 47 tackles, 15.5 sacks, three forced fumbles and a blocked punt on defense in a single season. That level of production earned him a spot at Virginia Tech, one of the most respected programs in college football, where he appeared in 34 games, registered 73 tackles, nine for loss and five sacks, all while adjusting to a positional move from defensive end to defensive tackle that forced him to relearn his entire game.
After college, Pene signed with the New England Patriots as an undrafted free agent in 2025. He competed in organized team activities and held his own against NFL competition. Then his international visa expired and Pene released before the season began. Not because of anything he did on the field, but because of paperwork. It was as cruel a moment as the sport can produce.
Now Pene lines up for the Paris Lights with something to prove to every team that has watched him and moved on. He is physically gifted, NFL-tested, and playing with the kind of motivation that is very difficult to manufacture. At 25, with his best football almost certainly still ahead of him, he could be the most compelling individual storyline on the entire Paris roster this season.
One of the most powerful legs in European American Football History
Special teams do not build headlines. They build winning margins. And the Paris Lights have addressed that part of their roster in a way that most expansion teams simply cannot.
Boris Bède is 35 years old and he has done nearly everything the sport can offer. Born in Toulon, France, he spent the majority of his professional career in the Canadian Football League, suiting up for the Montreal Alouettes, Toronto Argonauts, and Edmonton Elks across well over 100 appearances. His defining moment came in 2022, when he kicked the game-winning conversion as the Toronto Argonauts defeated the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in the 109th Grey Cup. In 2023, he posted a 94.87% field goal success rate – the second highest in CFL history.
Alongside Bède, the Lights have also signed French homegrown Mathys Dupont, who arrives from the Flash de la Courneuve after two seasons at the Paris Musketeers where he scored 131 points: 16 field goals and 83 point after touchdowns across 26 games. Dupont also plays defensive back, giving the Lights additional versatility on a roster still being assembled around a tight budget.
In a league where field position, turnover margin, and late-game pressure kicks will determine outcomes, having a kicker who has already performed at the highest level of North American professional football is not a small thing. It is an edge. And in a first season, edges are everything.
Why the Paris Lights will not be anyone’s easy win this season
The Paris Lights are a new franchise. They have no league history, no championship trophies, and no established European professional identity.
What they do have is a two-time champion calling the plays on offense. A Canadian quarterback who won a national title. A professional receiver who has earned MVP honors in multiple leagues. A head coach with direct European professional experience. A defensive staff that combines professional knowledge with clear ambition. And a kicker who has already won a Grey Cup.
First-year teams in professional football are routinely overlooked. They are expected to struggle through a first season, absorb the lessons, and build toward something better in year two. The Paris Lights are not built for that timeline.
The Paris Lights are not here to learn. They are here to win. And on May 30, at the Complexe Sportif de l’Île-des-Vannes, in front of every fan who walks through the gates for free, they get their first chance to prove it.
