Paris Saint-Germain are in the Champions League final, but has Qatar already won?

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On November 23, 2010, a lunch was hosted at the Elysee Palace, the official residence of the French president.

Among President Nicolas Sarkozy’s guests that day were Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad al-Thani, now the Emir of Qatar, and Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber al-Thani, who was Qatar’s prime minister at the time.

Also in attendance was the legendary French footballer Michel Platini, then-president of UEFA, European football’s governing body, and a member of the FIFA executive committee that was about to hold a vote to decide which countries would host the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.

Platini, he has said, went to the palace that day expecting a private audience with Sarkozy. Instead, he found himself in conversation with the high-powered delegation from the tiny, enormously wealthy gas-rich nation of Qatar.

When that ballot was held at FIFA headquarters in Zurich nine days later, Platini was among those who swayed the vote in Qatar’s favour. He has maintained his only motivation was “what is good for football” and denied being put under any political pressure. “I understood that Sarkozy supported the candidature of Qatar, but he never asked me (to vote for Qatar) or to vote for Russia (for the 2018 tournament),” he told the Guardian in 2013.

France and Qatar have been allies since the latter declared its independence in 1971 with the termination of British rule. The two nations signed a defence pact in 1994. Under Sarkozy’s presidency, between 2007 and 2012, there was a huge surge in Qatari investment in French industry, Parisian real estate and much else.

There have been far bigger deals than the state-backed Qatar Sports Investment’s (QSI’s) acquisition of an initial 70 per cent stake in Paris Saint-Germain for a reported €50million ($56.7million or £42million at today’s exchange rates) in June 2011.

But that deal, too, was of interest to the highest levels of government. In that same 2013 interview with the Guardian, Platini said he “knew Sarkozy wanted the people from Qatar to buy PSG” — though he has maintained the matter was not discussed at the now-infamous lunch at the Elysee Palace.

Sarkozy, Al Khelaifi and Tamim ben Hamad Al Thani watch PSG in 2015 (Photo: Xavier Laine/Getty Images)

A statement at the time from Franck Louvrier, who was Sarkozy’s communications adviser, said the president “took a close interest” in QSI’s takeover of PSG — “firstly because it is a foreign state that is investing in France and then because he is a (PSG) supporter”.

In 2010, PSG were in financial difficulties. They had won just two Ligue 1 titles in their history, in 1986 and 1994, and appeared unlikely to add to that total any time soon, having finished 15th, 16th, sixth and 13th in their four full seasons under the ownership of Colony Capital, an American investment firm, which was looking for a way out.

How times change when a football club has the financial backing of a nation with Qatar’s resources. Nearly 15 years on, Forbes values PSG at $4.4billion. On the pitch, they have won 11 of the past 13 Ligue 1 titles and on Saturday, they face Inter in the Champions League final in Munich, where victory would make them the first French club to win European club football’s biggest trophy since Marseille in 1993.

That has been the PSG owners’ stated ambition from the moment they bought the club. Their Qatari president, Nasser Al-Khelaifi, set an initial target to win it by 2015. After three consecutive quarter-final defeats, that target was put back to 2018. By 2018, Al-Khelaifi had revised it further, but said they “have” to win it within four years. So if not on Saturday, then when?

For Qatar, though, the acquisition of PSG has already paid off many times over. It was never, as some suggest, just about the prestige and kudos to be gained from winning the Champions League. Because buying PSG was about so more than just football.

“I wanted to build a brand,” Al-Khelaifi said when asked by The Athletic’s Nick Miller, in his book Who Owns Football? The Changing Face of Club Ownership, why QSI bought PSG. “We wanted to build up the football club. We wanted to have fanbases all over the world. We wanted to win trophies. We wanted to build the best training centre in the world.”

Qatar also wanted protection and influence. Dr David Roberts, a reader in international security and Middle East studies at King’s College London and the author of Qatar: Securing the Global Ambitions of a City-state, suggests the PSG takeover — along with a wide range of other investments in France, Germany, the UK, the U.S., China, Russia and elsewhere — was primarily about security.

“Just look at it from a geographical point of view,” Roberts says. “Qatar shares a border with Saudi Arabia, with whom it has had a difficult relationship in recent decades. To the south, there’s the United Arab Emirates, where again, there has been an uneasy relationship at times. Then, across the Persian Gulf, there’s Iran, with whom it shares this huge gas field but again, there are obvious concerns. In that scenario, with a long-running history of conflicts in the region, how does a country the size of Qatar secure itself?”

In the 1970s, Roberts says, Qatar was “pretty much anonymous internationally, hiding under Saudi Arabia’s auspices”. Under the rule of Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, from the mid-1990s, and once his son, Sheikh Tamim, became Crown Prince in 2003, Qatar took a very different approach by looking to strengthen its economic and, by extension, diplomatic ties with the most powerful nations.

Roberts describes it “as security through being seen, through these relationships” — both business and personal. “I don’t like the phrase ‘soft power’,” he says, “but that’s what it is.”

Christopher Davidson, the author of Shadow Wars: The Secret Struggle for the Middle East, agrees. He cites the PSG acquisition as one of several “straight-up soft-power investments to strengthen relations with the host countries, which were essentially seen as military protectors”.

“For Qatar and other states in the region,” he says, “that have transitioned into boosting the economic diversification policies, strengthening their status as safe tourist destinations, investment destinations and international partners.”

Many experts feel PSG and players like Messi and Neymar were part of Qatars efforts at diplomacy through sport (Photo: Tim Clayton/Corbis via Getty Images)

In June 2017, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt and Bahrain severed relations with Qatar, citing Doha’s support for terrorist groups including Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, Al-Qaeda and Hezbollah. It was a de facto blockade of Qatar and there were times when its hopes of hosting the 2022 World Cup were under genuine threat.

But throughout that period, there was little condemnation from the rest of the international community. U.S. President Donald Trump said in June 2017 that Qatar was “a funder of terrorism at a very high level”, adding it had an “extremist ideology in terms of funding”, but days later he authorised the sale of $12billion of American F-15 fighter jets to Doha. France, Germany and the UK also continued to sell arms to Qatar.

Nobody is suggesting this is out of respect for Qatar’s ownership of a French football club, but PSG is an increasingly prestigious part of a vast investment portfolio. Qatar’s investment in European sport — and so many other sectors — is widely felt to have bought a layer of security and diplomatic strength that such a small nation would not otherwise have had.

Privately, these elements are acknowledged by some people close to PSG. While officials at Manchester City object to portrayals of their 2008 takeover by Sheikh Mansour, now vice-president of the UAE, as anything but a personal investment, those in Paris and Doha do not dispute the geopolitical dimension behind QSI’s acquisition of PSG.

People who have worked closely with PSG’s leadership, speaking to The Athletic on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the situation, emphasise the many ways in which the club was the perfect fit for QSI: an opportunity to build a brand in keeping with Paris’s status as one of the most glamorous cities in the world.

But they also emphasise PSG made perfect sense in the diplomatic, economic and security context — as part of a wider picture where Qatar was strengthening its connections and diplomatic ties with France while also diversifying the nation’s economy in the knowledge that the gas supply will one day run out.

“It’s diplomacy through sport,” one person says. “They’ve got money and they feel sport — whether it’s hosting the World Cup in 2022, owning PSG or buying the rights to the World Padel Tour — is a really positive way to make connections, to diversify their economy and, let’s be honest, to gain positivity from the relationship with sport and with football in particular.”

And influence. In 2021, Al-Khelaifi became chairman of the powerful European Club Association, occupying the void that was left when 12 of the biggest clubs signed up to the short-lived European Super League venture. PSG were one of the few clubs invited who opposed it, a position some rival clubs felt owed much to an unwillingness to do anything so divisive when the Qatar World Cup was on the horizon.

Having spent the early part of the QSI regime in conflict with UEFA over breaches of its financial fair play regulations, Al-Khelaifi now had one of the most powerful voices in European football’s corridors of power. Outsiders a decade earlier, PSG and Qatar were now at the heart of the establishment.

There has long been a tendency to see the acquisitions of PSG,  Manchester City and Newcastle United — respectively by QSI, Sheikh Mansour and a consortium led by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund — through the same lens.

Call it what you like: sportswashing, soft power, diplomacy through sport. It is all usually portrayed as amounting to the same thing.

Roberts suggests the approaches of Qatar and the UAE, while commonly lumped together in the Western media, are in fact markedly different. He draws a contrast between Qatar’s focus on well-known and prestigious Western brands (Harrods Group, big stakes in Volkswagen, Porsche, Heathrow Airport) with the UAE’s more considered approach, looking for long-term value in less eye-catching acquisitions, whether it is obscure start-ups, new technology or a phenomenally successful investment in Chicago parking meters during the 2008 financial crisis.

The acquisition of PSG — and the way it was run for the first decade, with a focus on signing star players such as Zlatan Ibrahimovic, David Beckham, Neymar, Kylian Mbappe, Sergio Ramos and Lionel Messi — heightened the perception of what even Al-Khelaifi later disparagingly called a “flashy bling-bling” culture. Comparisons with Manchester City’s more strategic approach, under Abu Dhabi leadership, were not flattering.

Doue is part of PSG’s new generation (Photo: Aurelien Meunier – PSG/PSG via Getty Images)

It was an image PSG’s owner became desperate to shed. And it feels instructive that their resurgence has followed a switch in focus to signing young, up-and-coming players such as Willian Pacho, Joao Neves, Vitinha, Bradley Barcola, Desire Doue and Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, rather than star players whose best years are behind them.

Some have wondered whether the PSG hierarchy deserve more credit, spending the first decade building up the club’s brand by signing superstars and then switching focus. But even within the club there is a recognition that the change in approach came via default — due to exasperation with the circus that accompanied the superstar influx — rather than design.

In Paris, there is a willingness to portray the PSG story, for better or worse, as a less calculated venture than some appraisals would suggest. The wider geopolitical strategy is undeniable — as is the background to the takeover — but people with knowledge of the matter have indicated to The Athletic that the PSG venture as a whole was always more opportunistic, in direct contrast to, for example, the highly controversial but successful bid to host the 2022 World Cup.

“People should never underestimate how foreign policy and economic policy can be entirely directed by individuals,” Roberts says. “I sometimes talk about rule by whim in the Gulf, which is quite evident on occasions.

“We tend to look at these things, when it’s a $100million or $200million deal, and assume that they’ve undertaken an enormous study with consultants and lawyers and plans and strategies. But my basic point is that often, especially back in the day, some of these investments were made on a whim.”

Late last year, the French daily sports newspaper L’Equipe reported that the Emir of Qatar was open to the possibility of selling PSG. The report also suggested there was a sense of frustration and disillusionment within QSI after the “flashy bling-bling” period.

PSG immediately called the reports “completely false”, stating QSI’s commitment to the club, including investment in a new €350m Campus PSG training ground in Poissy.
Further reports since the turn of the year have suggested QSI’s disenchantment grew after Al-Khelaifi was placed under formal investigation in February in relation to a wider case involving the businessman Arnaud Lagardere, the head of the Lagardere Group, in which QIA has an 11.5 per cent stake. Khelaifi has denied any wrongdoing, describing the investigation as “nonsense”.

People familiar with the situation have told The Athletic that selling PSG has never been on QSI’s agenda. More likely is that they will sell off another minority stake, similar to the deal that saw U.S.-based investment firm Arctos Partners take a 12.5 per cent stake in the club in 2023.

Nevertheless, questions have persisted about the future of the Qatari project at PSG.

A mooted Qatari bid to stage the 2036 Summer Olympics seems to reflect changing priorities in Doha. Sheikh Jassim bin Hamad al-Thani, son of the former prime minister, might have failed with an attempt to buy Manchester United in 2023, but the nature of that bid — and the persistent rumours of Qatari interest in buying Tottenham Hotspur — raised questions about whether PSG might have served its purpose.

The return on investment in PSG has been enormous (Photo: Kristy Sparow/Getty Images for Qatar Airways )

In some ways, it has. Even purely in financial terms, the return on investment is enormous. That growth can be attributed largely to the surge in PSG’s commercial revenue — much of it linked to deals with Qatari or Qatari-owned companies — but none of this investment by Qatar Airways, Visit Qatar, beIN Sports, Qatar National Bank would be happening without a belief in Doha that it all makes sense as part of a wider soft-power strategy.

But after a period of frustration, which prompted Al-Khelaifi to backtrack on some of his earlier declarations about their ambitions, PSG find themselves one win away from Champions League glory.

People in Doha suggest a PSG victory on Saturday night would be greeted with celebrations on the Corniche — perhaps a firework display — but nothing wild. Yes, there are PSG shirts on display when you walk through Doha, but even after the 2022 World Cup it is hardly a hotbed of football passion. And, as in so many other big non-European cities, Real Madrid and the rest of the usual suspects also compete for top billing.

Qatar got its World Cup and now may win a Champions League (Photo: ODD ANDERSEN/AFP via Getty Images)

“There is no doubt it would be a very good thing for the Qataris’ investment,” Davidson says. “It’s an additional return on investment and it keeps visibility high. I guess it’s just a question of the marginal utility of that investment. If they win the Champions League, then, going forward, does winning it again bring them as much recognition as the initial stage of that cycle? I’m not sure it does.”

Another person suggests winning the Champions League would be a “relief” for PSG’s Qatari owners, “a monkey off their back”. There would be a certain regional “bragging rights” perspective — emulating Manchester City, two years after their long-awaited first European title under Sheikh Mansour’s ownership — but not like that 2017-21 period, when relations between Abu Dhabi and Doha were so strained.

Champions League glory has always been cited as the ultimate ambition for PSG’s Qatari owners, but the reality looks more nuanced than that. After all, how can it be the ultimate goal if it was about so much more than football in the first place?

This news was originally published on this post .

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