This is a figure that testifies to the financial crisis that French football is going through today.
According to our information, Paris Saint-Germain estimated their losses for the end of the season at 300 million euros.
This amount will be reduced by any sales that could be made during the month of June, but with a market revised downwards and the devaluation of the price of players, the club of the capital does not foresee record sales.
This giddy figure resonates with that advanced by Jean-Marc Mickeler, the president of the DNCG, last December.
At the time, the head of the financial policeman of French football explained that L1 clubs were heading for record losses.
“In their initial budget, the clubs had estimated their losses at 250 million euros at the end of the current season.
In fact, they will probably be closer to 800 million in Ligue 1 ”, he had deciphered.
We therefore know that in these 800 million euros more than a third will be attributable to the defending French champion.
This is not surprising when we know that the capital club has a very significant cost base with a payroll among the most impressive in Europe.
The Parisian club declared the third highest payroll on the continent in 2018, with 337 million euros in payroll, just behind the total emoluments paid by FC Barcelona (529) and Real Madrid (431).
Already significant losses last season
The problem for Paris is that the payments of his wages are no longer offset by income so far on the rise, but today strongly impacted by the coronavirus crisis with the absence of ticketing, the payment of rights TV suspended, and sponsorship revenues decline.
"Without drastic reduction in the wage bill, there is no sustainability of the model", decrypted Mickeler in December referring to the economic model of Ligue 1 clubs. What applies to all French clubs also applies to PSG where we remember that the players had refused to discuss a drop in emoluments during the first confinement.
Today, the club owned by Qatar is one of those entities owned by a wealthy owner and therefore has no worries about its immediate future.
But the deterioration of the accounts is taken seriously by the leaders of the club of the capital who have not planned any significant expenditure for player purchases during this winter transfer window.
At best, PSG plans to recruit free players or promote loans as in September and October.
The situation is all the more critical as the capital club is already deploring significant losses linked to last season and the end of the L1 championship.
These would be around 100 million euros, and the audit and consulting firm, KPMG, even mentioned on Monday a deficit of 125 million for the 2019-2020 fiscal year.
We know that UEFA relaxed the rules of financial fair play last June.
Clearly, the 2019-2020 and 2020-2021 seasons will be analyzed together and the decreases in revenue related to Covid-19 will be taken into account.
But with nearly 400 million euros in cumulative losses - if the most pessimistic estimates are confirmed - PSG cannot afford to spend lavishly during the current and future mercatos.
OM will have to reduce their payroll
For its part, OM estimates its losses at 150 million before transfer window.
His career, even bad in the Champions League, allowed him to reduce his next deficit a little.
But the Marseille club, also weighed down by the pandemic and its harmful effects on revenue, will have to reduce its payroll.
As indicated by President Jacques-Henri Eyraud and Director of Football Pablo Longoria, OM will not retain any player, and especially not its most bankable players like Kamara, in the event of an interesting offer.
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In the same way, the Marseille leaders are not in a hurry to make concrete proposals in the extension files linked among other things to the end of contract of Florian Thauvin or Jordan Amavi.
On the OM side, the urgency is rather to wait and measure the economic consequences of this extraordinary pandemic and the effects of Brexit.