In London Queen Elizabeth II, but also football. The capital of England has six clubs in the Premier League and more than 25 in the city, a record for a European city. Madrid has four teams in the League, and its fame goes through the Champions League: nobody coughs up its ears, 13, all monopolized by Real Madrid. The Eternal City houses a world-famous classic such as Roma-Lazio and Lisbon boasts the rich history of Benfica and its rivalry with Sporting. Berlin is a separate case: Nazism and the wall left a void of years, which is reborn today thanks to two paintings, symbols of the reunification of 1990, the Berlin Union (east) and the Hertha BSC (west). Paris, on the other hand, was never very interested in the ball. The classism of rugby and Parisian snobbery always seemed to look down on popular football. Neither Raí nor Pauleta,neither did Weah and Ronaldinho put Paris on the map. The history of Beckham was a glamor crush, Ibrahimovic was alone and Neymar was left at the gates of the Champions League. Now they are looking for the definitive king for a long-awaited reign, the conquest of their first Champions League: the French club finalizes the signing of Leo Messi.
On Thursday afternoon, after Barça issued a brief statement in which it reported that it was detaching from 10, in the player's office, on Avenida Diagonal in Barcelona, mobile phones began to ring.
Roman Abramovich appeared, a call from his friend Luis Suárez in case he tempted him to go to Atlético, and the one he called every year: PSG.
Every time Messi threatened to leave Barcelona (2014, 2016 and 2020), the Paris club was there, with a blank check, to tempt the Rosario forward.
More information
Messi: "I don't know about Barcelona, but I did everything possible to stay"
Messi: fourth storm and fifth Champions
It is no coincidence that PSG pursued the Argentine, the player with the most succulent contract in European football. There are few (if not the only) clubs that have this financial capacity. But it was not always the same. The Paris club was founded in 1970, after the merger of Paris Football Club and Stade Saint-Germain. It took him four years to get into the First Division, 12 to win his first title (Coupe de France) and 16 to conquer the French league. They repeated, with Raí in their ranks (at that time, one of the great jewels of Brazilian football) in 1994. Afterwards, silence. Everything changed in 2011, when Nasser Al-Khelaïfi appeared, the son of a pearl fisherman (the most important activity in Qatar before the economic one developed from gas and oil), a modest tennis player (995 of the ranking in 2002) ,and friend of the Emir of Qatar Tamim bin Hamad Al Zani, who bought 70% of the club. A year later, he was left with the entire shareholding package of the Parisian entity.
Al-Khelaïfi heads the Qatar Tennis, Squash and Badminton Federation and leads the Asian Tennis Federation (ATF). He is the president of Qatar Sports Investments (Qsi), a subsidiary of the Qatari sovereign wealth fund, which in addition to being the owner of PSG, is the owner of Burrda, a Qatari sportswear brand; and controls beIN Media Group, a media group founded in 2014, which has 22 television channels in different countries.
Since Qatar joined forces with Paris thanks to the mediation of the then French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, the team from the capital began to dominate Ligue 1. They won seven of the last nine leagues, six Cups, eight Super Cups and six League Cups. . Europe, on the other hand, is choking them. They fell four times in the quarterfinals (2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016), three times in the second round (2017, 2018 and 2019), they reached the final in 2020, but remained among the four best in the Champions League in 2021.
It is precisely the Champions League the great objective of Al-Khelaïfi. And to achieve this, he invested 1,391 million euros in transfers (surpassed by Manchester City, owned by the Sheikh of the United Arab Emirates, Mansour bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, who spent more than 2,120 million since 2008) since he arrived in Paris. . The first great addition was the Argentine Pastore: 42 million to Palermo in the 2011-2012 campaign. In that summer, they spent 107 million, 98 more than the previous season when PSG belonged to an American group.
Never, in any case, did PSG open both the portfolio as in the summer of 2017. In that market they took Neymar from Barcelona in exchange for the 222 million euro termination clause and signed Mbappé, the emerging soccer star French, on loan, with the obligation to pay 180 million the following year. "LaLiga will denounce PSG. We will do it because it violates UEFA's financial fair play rules and European Union competition rules, ”LaLiga president Javier Tebas complained.
UEFA opened a file for him that the CAS (Court of Arbitration for Sport) closed definitively in 2019. “The club reiterates that it has always respected the rules and that it has made an effort to respond calmly and transparently to UEFA's repeated requests, both in its form as in its substance ”, published PSG after being exonerated. In the last five years, according to Forbes Magazine, PSG is the sports club that has grown the most: 207%. With a value of 2,500 million, Paris is ranked 49th on the magazine's list, a table led by the Dallas Cowboys, (NFL, 5,700 million) and in which Barça (4,760) and Madrid (4,720) meet in fourth and fifth place respectively.
This summer, in his eagerness to conquer Europe, he reopened the portfolio: Achraf, 60 million; and Danilo Pereira, 16. And he will stay, if nothing goes wrong, with former Barcelona captain Messi, in addition to tying Real Madrid's Sergio Ramos, both at zero cost. In addition, he also signed Liverpool dressing room leader Wijnaldum and European champion goalkeeper Donnarumma as free players. Neymar (renewed in the last season), Di María, Verratti and Marquinhos, among others, will remain in the squad. All that remains is to reveal the future of Mbappé, intended by Madrid. A team led by Mauricio Pochettino, a finalist in the Champions League with Tottenham in 2019. “Mauricio will have a difficult task with all those egos. Only a technician with the charisma and peace of Ancelotti or one with the personality of Poche can do it ”,conclude from the environment of the Argentine coach.
Messi points to Paris and PSG to their first Champions League.
It will be, perhaps at last, when football conquers the French capital.
You can follow EL PAÍS DEPORTES on
and
, or sign up here to receive
our weekly newsletter
.