As you wander round Paris Saint-Germain’s new lot on Oxford Street, what sticks out is how desperately they want to be cool.
There are club-branded skateboards for £150. Their “Ici c’est Paris” line has the unmistakeable look and pricing of high-end streetwear. There’s a wildly overpriced handbag collaboration with Hello Kitty. There are even club-branded professional grade aerosol cans for £120 a pop, if you want your graffiti to ooze Parisian class.
Simon Chadwick, professor of sport and geopolitical economy at Skema Business School, lives in Paris and regularly visits Qatar. He tells i: “What we’ve always known about PSG is it was never intended to be a football club, but a global entertainment and lifestyle product. There’s a store on New York’s Fifth Avenue, Oxford Street and Champs-Elysees.
“This feeds into Qatar’s tourism strategy, which intends to be very different to Dubai’s pile-it-high, sell-it-cheap mentality – much lower volumes of much higher-value tourists.”
It’s no secret PSG are rebranding under the directive of owners Qatar Sports Investments (QSI), a subsidiary of Qatari sovereign wealth fund Qatar Investment Authority (QIA). Lionel Messi and Neymar departed very publicly, while Sergio Ramos and Marco Verratti slipped out the back door.
Their superstar summer signing was forward Randal Kolo Muani, born 15 days before Kylian Mbappe in the same Parisian suburb. Alongside Ousmane Dembele, they make an all-French front line, supported by a further two 21-year-old forwards signed this summer – Bradley Barcola and Hugo Ekitike.
In defence, World Cup winner Lucas Hernández joins Presnel Kimpembe, Layvin Kurzawa and Parisian full-back Nordi Mukiele. Add in two more Parisians – back-up goalkeeper Alexandre Letellier and 17-year-old midfield prodigy Warren Zaïre-Emery, and there’s a functional, if slightly unbalanced, French XI at the capital’s premier club. Even 16-year-old Ethan Mbappe, Kylian’s brother, is in the Champions League squad.
This has not yet bore fruit on the pitch. PSG are languishing in the barren depths of fifth after their worst-ever start to a Ligue 1 season under their Qatari ownership – 12 points from seven games.
However, they won their first Champions League game under Luis Enrique convincingly, 2-0 against Borussia Dortmund, with five Frenchmen in a European line-up for the first time in six years. The same five are likely to take to St James’ Park on Wednesday night. The usually unforgiving Parisian fans are realising there are still tangible reasons for optimism.
“From the people I know close to PSG, their targets have really been stretched,” Chadwick explains. “There’s a much greater emphasis on generating revenues, and also a much greater emphasis on controlling costs.
“With Messi, Neymar, Mbappe – there was something so 2003 about it all. What I mean by 2003 is – that’s the year David Beckham signed for Real Madrid, the peak of the galacticos era. But we don’t want to live in 2003 anymore.
“Somewhat belatedly, PSG has realised this. They’ve got a new director of communications, who has come from Meta [owner of Facebook and Instagram]. PSG realises it needs to be more relevant to a 2023 audience. Signing a bunch of old blokes from Spain is not very Gen Z. Fandom changes, marketing changes, business changes.”
This aligns with a wider post-World Cup shift in Qatari sporting strategy. Having spent around £200bn on hosting the World Cup, creating the infrastructure almost entirely from scratch, they are moving away from unsustainable spending and towards financial stability.
QIA has invested an estimated $4bn (£3.3bn) in Washington DC’s NBA, NHL and WNBA teams. QSI has bought the World Padel Tour. Qatari businessman Sheikh Jassim is still pushing to buy Manchester United.
“Talking to Qataris, from 18 December last year to 18 September this year, the prevailing response from everyone has been that ‘Qatar’s been asleep’,” Chadwick says. “The World Cup was a gigaproject of essentially building a country in 12 years, underpinning Qatari development for the remainder of this century.
“People needed a rest, so they all went to sleep after the World Cup – but we’re now seeing the country beginning to wake up. Two things are happening in this waking up. The first is a focus on how to utilise and sweat existing assets. The other part is a focus on new assets and investments for the Qataris to plough money into.”
Another established Qatari asset is the Qatar Stars League, the nation’s domestic football competition. Amid the summer spending chaos of the Saudi Pro League, the QSL made few headline signings, almost all from PSG.
Verratti left for £39m, alongside Julian Draxler for £17m, Abdou Diallo for £13m, 19-year-old defender Younes El Hannach for an undisclosed fee, and forward Ilyes Housni on loan. They follow Rafinha, Kais Najeh and Sekou Yansane from the previous season.
The transfers of Verratti, Draxler and Diallo are reportedly under investigation by Uefa. PSG’s Qatari sponsorships also continue to attract scrutiny. PSG were also helped in the latest battle of their long-running war with FFP regulations by Saudi Arabia, who paid over the odds for Neymar and signed Georginio Wijnaldum.
QSL has made little-to-no effort to compete with the SPL. Saudi Arabia has a much greater population and footballing culture to cater for, and Qatar’s days of lavish spending with no hope of return appear to be over.
Yet despite the ongoing geopolitical issue caused by the Saudi banning of Tod TV, a streaming service owned by Qatar’s beIN Sports, relationships between the nations have become less hostile. It is unlikely the same can be said for their respective football clubs tonight.
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