“It’s the end of glitter.”
When Paris Saint-Germain president Nasser Al-Khelaifi declared the club’s “bling bling” era was over in June 2022, very few took him too seriously.
You could hear Neymar’s laughter and the clinking of Laurent Perrier champagne glasses from the private room of a Parisan nightclub for miles around.
PSG were all about their Galacticos and had just signed the world’s most famous footballer Lionel Messi on astronomical wages to play alongside ageing former Real Madrid skipper Sergio Ramos and their piece de resistance Kylian Mbappe.
Al-Khelaifi was not for turning. Messi, Ramos and Neymar were soon all gone. Marco Verratti too, with Mbappe following them out the door not long after. It was, however, part of the most remarkable plan.
Nobody really believed PSG would sell their biggest stars (Photo: Getty)“When perhaps everyone realised the club were serious was when Messi was dropped after he chose to go on a tourist trip to Saudi Arabia instead of training,” a source close to the club tells The i Paper.
“Before the institution was weak, he would have been allowed to get away with it. Most international media could not believe the best player ever, just after the World Cup, could be treated in this way.
“But the club had to put the collective first. And it has worked.”
When Qatar Sports Investments acquired PSG in 2011, effectively making them a state-owned club, they were anything but the dominant force in French football they are today – finishing as low as 16th in 2008 and 13th in 2010.
Al-Khelaifi therefore began the first of three phases of the club’s transformation – stabilisation.
Then in came the big names. Zlatan Ibrahimovic, David Beckham and Thiago Silva helped PSG win their first Ligue 1 title in 19 years in 2013. The signings just got gradually more expensive, and problematic.
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“The club probably let the bling bling era go on too long,” a source adds. “But that spending was necessary to raise the profile of the club and bring in revenue that could be spent on players in the future.
“When QSI spent big early on and made huge losses, they had no choice. Any new business needs big outlay at the start.
“It was always part of the plan. Bringing in the star names has got PSG where they are today. And then phase three could come in.”
To say it is one thing, but to turf out Neymar, Messi, Ramos and Verratti, in one summer, is something else entirely.
Mbappe’s exit, although forced, was PSG really sticking to their word. Regarded as the world’s best player, a Parisian, he fell out with the club spectacularly, with legal cases threatened, but there was never any real resistance from senior figures at the Parc des Princes to his departure. They were ready to move on.
“We have confidence in our project and our young players,” Al-Khelaifi said earlier this year. “They’re great players, with qualities and personality. We have a style, we have a DNA, and the most important thing is what we’ve been creating over the last year and a half.
“The most important thing is not the result of a match or qualification. We have the basis. We have the team for now and the future.”
PSG now boast the kind of unit every coach in world football wants to create. The team with the second youngest average starting XI in this season’s Champions League blew Liverpool away in the first leg of their last-16 clash and somehow slipped to defeat.
It felt very PSG-y. The odd impressive performance on the continent was no trouble for their expensively assembled team of megastars. But where the Galacticos of previous years had no inclination to fight back, today’s fledgling force held no fear at fortress Anfield, Europe’s most vibrant team taking the game to their opponents and this time getting their rewards.
The average age of recruited players last summer was just 21 years and two months – the youngest in PSG’s history. Their academy has already produced some of the best embryonic talent on the continent – midfielder Warren Zaire-Emery the most obvious example. A new £300m academy and training centre will only help them continue on that path.
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They still spend big, but on a different kind of player altogether. What’s more, as is essential in the world of greater financial regulations, they generate plenty of revenue from player sales too.
No area has been neglected in this attempt to focus on the collective. In a first for French football, the club has introduced a results-based bonus structure where all staff, at all levels, benefit from positive results on the pitch.
Commercially, their appeal has not suffered as a result of moving away from the bling. The NBA has approached QSI over the prospect of a Parisian basketball franchise.
Champions League success has been the only thing missing from QSI’s tenure. Semi-finals have been a staple, while Thomas Tuchel’s side lost to Bayern Munich in the 2020 final.
Remarkably, however, with Aston Villa to negotiate their way past next, there are a growing number of voices who believe this year represents their best chance of their first Champions League crown, all after having sold four of the greatest players of all time within the last two years.
“They don’t deal with all that stuff anymore,” a source adds. “There are no nightclubs, no distracting girlfriends. It is all about the collective. The institution is now stronger than anyone.”
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