Paris Saint-Germain – GAME OF THE PEOPLE

PARIS Saint-Germain look set to lose Kylian Mbappé this summer to Real Madrid, but the enormous wealth of the French champions means they will surely replace the young striker with another high profile signing. PSG’s financial advantages have brought them a multitude of top names and they currently have Neymar, Lionel Messi and Mbappé, but with their resources, PSG should be winning everything in France and challenging in Europe.

Their wage bill was € 500 million in 2020-21, around one third of the overall Ligue 1 total and more than € 350 million more than the nearest rival, Olympique Lyonnais, whose wages came to € 134 million. In 2020-21, PSG were beaten to the Ligue 1 title by Lille, whose player remuneration was around one sixth of the sum paid to the Parisians’ squad.

PSG’s finances make them the ultimate flat-track bully, but when they compete in the UEFA Champions League, they are found wanting almost every time. PSG’s problems stem from a lack of continuity around the management of the team and a culture of short-termism. Like Chelsea, their squad is a composition of various influences and they also have a penchant for attention-catching signings. Hence, the arrival of Messi and, for some peculiar reason, Sergio Ramos, both players past their prime, but undoubtedly enormously expensive.

The latest report from France’s DNCG (National Directorate of Control & Management), reveals French football was heavily impacted by the covid-19 pandemic in 2020-21. Only three clubs – Dijon, Reims and Saint-Étienne – made a profit and some of the losses were very eye-watering.

PSG’s loss, despite revenues of € 569 million (+2%), was € 225 million, the highest in France by some distance and the third highest in Europe after Barcelona (€ 550 million) and Inter Milan (€ 239 million). After PSG, whose losses climbed by € 100 million, the biggest loss in France was made by Lyon (-€ 109m), Marseille (-€ 76m) and Bordeaux (-€ 67m).

Like all French clubs, PSG’s matchday income was almost wiped out, but their bottom line figure was also influenced by a big reduction were in player trading which was down from a € 50 million profit to a near € 5 million loss. Profits on player sales are less important to PSG than rivals Monaco, Lyon and Lille, for obvious reasons, but there is clearly upside for the club if they choose to adopt a more commercial approach to transfers.

The club also incurred an increase in their already huge player costs. PSG’s wages were up by 21% to € 503 million in 2020-21, a wage-to-income of 88%. According to L’Equipe, of the top 20 earners in French football, 18 are from PSG, with only Monaco’s Wissam Ben Yedder and Cesc Fabregas making up the list. The DNCG is keen to control the excesses of PSG, needless to say, and aims to stop any club having a wage bill of more than 70% of income. Another measure in progress is the restriction of debt, forbidding any club from having debt greater than share capital.

Broadcasting recovered in 2020-21 after the collapse of Ligue 1’s deal with Mediapro. Overall, TV accounts for 43% ( € 835 millon) of Ligue 1’s income and PSG generated over £ 200 million from this stream, a 54% rise on 2019-20. PSG have become very proficient commercially and their income totalled € 337 million. However, they are striving to push the envelope even further and hoped the acquisition of Messi would provide a significant boost.

Ligue 1’s total income was € 1.6 billion, but € 1.2 billion was paid out in wages and another € 119 million to agents and intermediaries. The league lost € 645 million, the total for Ligue 1 and 2 was a deficit of € 685 million.

PSG could be at the start of a new phase. The restrictions to be implemented will make it more difficult for the club to leverage its financial power and at some point, they will have to look at the way they build their teams. There’s also a good chance manager Mauricio Pochettino will move on and, with Mbappé and Ángel Di María certainly leaving, along with the possible departure of Neymar, times may be changing in Paris.

At the same time, France needs greater competition to improve the overall quality of Ligue 1. The country produces very good players on a regular basis, the national team are world champions and UEFA Nations League winners, but PSG are not always pushed enough. They’re still waiting for that first Champions League title, after all.

THE UEFA Women’s Champions League has reached the quarter-final stage and the eight teams involved are: Arsenal, Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Juventus, Lyon, Paris Saint-Germain, Real Madrid and Wolfsburg. It could almost read like the A to Z of men’s football in Europe, with the exception of Lyon and Wolfsburg. Five of the eight have appeared in at least seven quarter-finals in the past decade and in the past five years, six have taken part in at least four. The men’s game has actually been less polarised since 2017-18.

Clearly, money talks in the women’s game almost as much as it does with men. The leading clubs are almost all affiliated to elite European clubs and unsurprisingly, those teams are dominant in their domestic leagues. Of the last eight of the Champions League, the leaders in Spain (Barcelona), France (Lyon), Germany (Wolfsburg), Italy (Juventus) and England (Arsenal) are all in the mix. While men’s football took decades to create huge imbalances, women’s football seems to have reached that stage at a rather extraordinary speed.

Barcelona, the holders, demonstrated how superb their team was when they swept Chelsea’s women aside in 2020-21 in the Champions League final. In the league this season, Barca have won all 24 of their games, scoring an astonishing 136 goals and conceding just six. They have already been crowned champions. Likewise, Lyon are unbeaten in France, winning 16 of their 17 games and PSG, Arsenal, Juventus and Arsenal have all lost just one game each.

The elite in women’s football have financial strength and this enables them to lure the top players to their clubs. For example, the Guardian’s top 100 women footballers, published at the end of 2021, included 13 from Barcelona, 10 each from Lyon and PSG, nine from both Arsenal and Chelsea and eight from Bayern Munich. In total, the current last eight of the Champions League accounted for 58% of the top 100.

The Women’s Super League in England is dominated by three clubs: Chelsea, Manchester City and Arsenal. Chelsea have won five titles since 2015 while Manchester City have been runners-up six times in that same period. Arsenal’s most recent championship win was in 2019, although they lead the table in 2021-22.

Interest is growing in the women’s game in England and the average WSL crowd is now around 1,600 with Arsenal the biggest draw with gates of just under 2,600. Chelsea average 2,500 and Manchester City 2,200 and another half dozen generate more than 1,000 with Manchester United just under 2,000. There’s no shortage of media coverage these days and the profile of women’s football is growing all the time. Currently, there is considerable momentum behind the levelling up of wages, notably in the FA Cup, but while the highest level of women’s football has attendances comparable to step two or three non-league, advocates will have to be prepared for a long game.

Only one WSL team has won the Champions League or its equivalent, Arsenal in 2007, who beat Swedish side Umeå 1-0 on aggregate. The winning goal was scored by none other than BBC pundit Alex Scott and the combined crowd from the two games struggled to get to 10,000. The last Champions League final with a crowd drew almost 20,000. This year’s final will be played in Turin.

The names might be familiar, but the Champions League should make for compelling viewing over the coming weeks. Can anyone really stop the Barcelona machine?

Quarter-final draw: Bayern Munich v PSG (22 March, 30 March); Juventus v Lyon (23 March, 31 March); Arsenal v Wolfsburg (23 March, 31 March); Real v Barcelona (22 March, 30 March).