With Paris Saint-Germain having recently lost Lionel Messi and now likely to lose Kylian Mbappe for free next year, here's why the French club seems destined to fail again!
In June 2011, Qatar Sports Investments (QSI) took over PSG, automatically making them one of the wealthiest clubs in the world. Qatari businessman Nasser Al-Khelaifi was named the team's 17th president and so began a tumultuous reign that is yet to deliver on one of the owner's primary goals, winning the UEFA Champions League.
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According to Statista, QSI had spent a staggering €1.4 billion (R28.6 billion) on transfers by 2021/22, a sum that far exceeds the spending power of all professional teams in France and most teams across Europe. With more than a decade of hiring and firing managers as well as throwing excessive sums of cash at players, the club still looks nowhere near the full package they dream of being, and they now face somewhat of a crisis given their apparent lack of direction.
The 2021 arrival of Messi at the Parc des Princes sparked a lot of hope among PSG supporters who believed they would finally go on to win the holy grail, the Champions League, with a front three of Mbappe, Neymar, and the Argentine superstar.
However, in the two seasons that the seven-time Ballon d'Or winner was a Les Parisiens player, the team suffered back-to-back round of 16 eliminations from Europe's elite club competition, at the hands of Real Madrid in 2021/22 and Bayern Munich last season. The unflattering takeaway from this is that the two most recent eliminations with Messi in the team marked the fourth and fifth occasion that the club failed to progress beyond the last 16 since the Qataris began their tenure.
Now to make matters worse, the face of their new project, Mbappe, has informed the hierarchy that he has no desire to trigger the one-year extension included in his latest deal and will leave in June 2024 as a free agent. This has reportedly been a huge devastation for those in the club's boardroom as they had high expectations for the 24-year-old when they handed him a record-breaking contract worth a €72 million (R1.4 billion) a year in May 2022.
Their sporting project, led by football advisor Luis Campos, has now been drastically derailed as Mbappe will now leave on a free next year or be sold for a profitable fee in this transfer window, casting away all their plans for the future with the 2018 FIFA World Cup winner. The Emir of Qatar, Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, was particularly left unimpressed by the player's decision to seek a new challenge in a year's time and slapped an initial €200 million (R4 billion) price tag on the No. 7 in case Real Madrid want to finally sign the former AS Monaco forward.
The project now looks to be back to square one, and they are yet to make last season's head coach Christophe Galtier's sacking official, despite numerous reports stating that they have replaced the French boss with former FC Barcelona manager Luis Enrique after one year in charge. Galtier's failure to win the elusive Champions League is said to be the reason the club parted ways with him, per RMC Sport, which is also thought to be the justification for their dismissal of many of their ex-coaches, such as Mauricio Pochettino and Unai Emery, among others.
PSG's "Hollywood" approach to running the club has proved to be a costly exercise as figures released by the National Management Control Department (DNCG), which monitors French clubs' financial affairs, shows they recorded a €375 million (R7.6 billion) loss in 2021/22.
While it would be expected of the them to make another blockbuster transfer, with the likes of Victor Osimhen and Bernardo Silva linked with a move to the Parc des Princes, PSG are yet to confirm any new transfers so far, although they have reportedly reached agreements to sign Manuel Ugarte from Sporting CP, former Real winger Marco Asensio, and Kang-in Lee of Mallorca, according to Fabrizio Romano.
Per French newspaper L'Equipe, the side's transfer business is also something Mbappe has not been particularly impressed with. The one caveat, though, is that recent reports now suggest that one of their biggest stars, Neymar, will stay in Paris despite being an unwanted figure for a section of the team's fans and some members upstairs.
Read: Mbappe 'demands' Messi-like contract with next club
With Manchester City having asserted their dominance in Europe and the likes of Real seemingly always likely to win the Champions League, PSG once again look destined to fail on the continental stage next season.
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