Some commentators, not least Luis Enrique, have spun Paris Saint-Germain’s run to the Champions League final and triumph over Arsenal as an anti-establishment story. That is a laughable notion.
Let’s get one thing straight: Arsenal are no underdogs.
Owner Stan Kroenke is the 89th richest person in the world and, factoring in loans, equity and the original takeover price, has invested almost £1.5bn in the North London club. Arsenal are but one team in a £12.5bn-valued sports empire run by Kroenke Sports & Entertainment (KSE).
Only six football teams generated more revenue in 2023-24 than Arsenal, whose history and global brand helped them generate £132m and £222m in matchday and commercial income respectively in that period. Total turnover has doubled in the last decade and stood at £614m last term.
Credit: Adam Williams/TBR Football/GRV Media
As heavyweights in the Premier League, Arsenal benefit from the mother of all TV deals. Over the next four seasons, the Gunners will be one of 20 teams that share £6.7bn worth of media income.
Paris Saint-Germain’s domestic equivalent? A £1.7bn deal with DAZN, who are now on the verge of terminating the deal early and leaving French clubs with almost no media income.
What’s more, UK broadcasters’ outsized contribution to UEFA’s central media pot means that English clubs like Arsenal earn more before a ball is kicked in the Champions League than almost any other club.
Incidentally, Stan Kroenke actively lobbied for the new Champions League format, which UEFA see as a means of placating the former European Super League dissidents. Kroenke was instrumental in the formation of that breakaway league. PSG refused to sign up.
There has been much sneering at Ligue 1 in English football. PSG boss Luis Enrique referenced it in one post-match interview last night. “The league of farmers, no? We are the league of farmers,” he quipped.
But with all that said, Arsenal were still the underdogs in last night’s 2-1 defeat at Parc des Princes.
Why? The reason has far more to do with football finance decisions made in Gulf palaces than anything within Mikel Arteta or Enrique’s control.
PSG accused of inflating transfer market to stifle competition from rivals like Arsenal
Arsenal’s xG last night – 3.42 compared with PSG’s 1.14 – suggests that, if they had a proven goalscorer on the pitch, they would have had every chance of reaching a first ever Champions League final.
Granted, that was as much to do with the brilliance of Gianluigi Donnarumma as it was to chances missed by Declan Rice and Bukayo Saka.
However, Arsenal’s failure to sign a world-class centre-forward in January in tandem with injuries in attacking positions has certainly seen Arteta’s side falter in the second half of the season.
The shock departure of sporting director Edu Gaspar didn’t help, but the decision not to break the bank to try and sign Alexander Isak, Benjamin Sesko or another finisher was ultimately financial and made at Kroenke HQ.
As far as the owner was concerned, the risk-benefit analysis simply didn’t warrant spending up to £100m or perhaps more in a window when clubs are generally held to ransom and when the Premier League title was slipping away anyway, especially as it would likely have involved having to put money into the club as opposed to using existing cash reserves.
Far better, the Kroenkes thought, to wait until the summer.
At PSG, that’s an alien concept. Historically, they have acted compulsively in the transfer market, signing superstar after superstar at the behest of Nasser Al-Khelaifi, the club’s president who also heads up the sovereign wealth fund Qatar Sports Investments.
Now, PSG have pivoted to what is ostensibly a smarter strategy, one which relies more on systems than superstars.
But was their previous ‘compulsion’ actually part of a calculated strategy from a state-backed club with near limitless resources that has now got them to this point, a step away from Champions League glory?
One theory goes that the decision to sign Neymar and Kylian Mbappe for a combined total of over £350m in 2017 was both a bid to raise the commercial profile of the club and, crucially, deliberately inflate the transfer market so that other clubs simply couldn’t compete.
That has been corroborated by what sources have told The Independent’s Miguel Delaney in the past.
Many within football finance with whom TBR Football speaks believe the theory is entirely credible, while academics have long said it is in keeping with Qatar’s strategies in other industries.
- READ MORE: Ian Wright says what he hopes Arsenal will soon do in wake of Champions League loss to PSG
The financial chasm between PSG and Arsenal
Even a cursory look at the data over the last eight years suggests that PSG’s alleged strategy to short-circuit football’s financial ecosystem in 2017 has had the desired effect.
Arsenal, for example, have run up losses of nearly £300m over the last six seasons trying to compete in an out-of-control transfer market and wage economy. That is despite annual revenue increasing by around £200m over the same period. Costs are rising faster than turnover.
Credit: Adam Williams/TBR Football/GRV Media
Kroenke doesn’t like the benefactor model and one day will stop subsidising those deficits. That simply isn’t a problem for PSG, whose owners are not concerned with a financial return on investment. In the same timeframe, they have lost almost £750m, while their operating losses have broken the £1bn mark.
PSG’s wage bill is by far the highest in world football.
At £553m in 2023-24, it was almost twice as high as Arsenal’s and over £100m bigger than any other club in world football.
If they win the Champions League this season, bonuses could inflate that by an estimated £100m, which beat their own world-record wage bill set in 2022. Arsenal’s wage bill in the same season was one-third of PSG’s.
Nasser Al-Khelaifi: Arsenal’s nemesis and the most powerful man in football
The Gunners are no fans of state involvement in football.
This stance is what a lot of Arsenal’s rivalry with Manchester City, who are effectively owned by the Abu Dhabi royal family, boils down to. They think that, even compared to multibillionaires like Kroenke, states simply have too much power and influence to be involved in the beautiful game.
Nasser Al-Khelaifi, probably the most powerful man in football, is the embodiment of this.
The PSG president is a member of UEFA’s executive committee and the top board of the increasingly powerful European Club Association, which essentially acts as a lobby group to further elite clubs’ interests. Alongside Arsene Wenger, he is also one of the foremost champions of FIFA’s revamped Club World Cup.
As chairman of BeIn Sports, Al-Khelaifi has woven himself into the architecture of football as much as Silvio Berlusconi or Rupert Murdoch before him.
He has a direct line to world leaders as the enforcer of Qatari Sheikh bin Hamad Al Thani. It has been reported that he also has his eyes on the FIFA presidency.
Chillingly for Arsenal, Al-Khelaifi has been linked with taking over Tottenham, where his model would be the absolute antithesis of Daniel Levy’s.
