Champions League: A Paris Saint-Germain win is a win for Qatar
The nation-state of Qatar owns PSG.
It may surprise people to know that PSG just turned 50 years old. There were no black balloons and ‘Over the hill’ cards at their birthday celebration last week.
It’s even more shocking to know that the club was once was fan-owned for its first three years of existence and had roughly 20,000 members.
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From 1973 through 2011, the ownership of the team changed hands multiple times.
In June of 2011, Oryx Qatar Sports Investments (QSI) took the majority share ownership of Paris SG. QSI went on to take over full ownership the following year. Nasser Al-Khelaifi, the new ownership group’s chairman, has been president of the club since the takeover.
QSI is a branch of a much larger tree called the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), which is a sovereign wealth fund owned by the state of Qatar.
This takeover of a European football club by a Middle Eastern nation was the most overt example of state-owned ownership. Manchester City’s take over was termed by the United Arab Emirates as a “private investment” by Sheikh Mansour of the ruling royal family in 2008.
The explicit sporting goal for Les Rouge et Bleu for the last nine years has been to become the biggest club not just in France but in Europe by winning the Champions League. QSI has spent over €1 billion on transfers since their takeover.
Reaching the final of the UCL tournament must be seen as a success for the team and its Qatari owners despite the fact they have flaunted Financial Fair Play regulations multiple times in the process.
However, running up debts is the least worrisome of the lengthy list of transgressions committed by the state of Qatar.