So Paris Saint-Germain – but that’s just the sophisticated brand label behind which Lionel Messi’s new employer is hiding: not the city of fashion and light, but the petrodollar emirate of Qatar, behind the Strait of Hormuz, where fairytale wealth is always there – Covid or financial crises – gushing out of the ocean floor.
So PSG is making the race for the best player in the world, it would have only been a neighborhood duel with the ruler in Dubai anyway – he is behind the Manchester City label. The English super club and champions have been shaking the sports world for a while with other transfer escapades, so it was possibly opportune to let the French go first. The fact that the rulers of Doha and Dubai could sign ten Messis in a family pack at any time is one thing.
The other, and that is the big problem, are the Financial Fair Play Rules (FFP) of the European football union Uefa. They are a good thing if they are used seriously to prevent the few super-rich from going senselessly in a competition that would no longer be a competition: According to FFP regulations, clubs are not allowed to spend more money per season than they earn, and external ones Investors can make up for a maximum of 30 million euros in deficits over three years.
When the shady Fifa boss Gianni Infantino was still Secretary General of Uefa, he held his hand over chatting big clubs. Qatar’s state fund was able to pump hundreds of millions of euros into PSG, which was sold as a sponsorship of the Qatari tourism authority. It was a clear cross-financing of the investor – just the financial doping that FFP wants to fight. It was similar with ManCity. But when Uefa discovered the financial tricks in the post-Infantino era and blocked the super club, City moved to the Cas sports court. And got right. The Citizens simply denied that the cash flow came from the emir’s investments – even though internal e-mails revealed this. And these emails also revealed that the wealthy owners would rather put millions in the world’s best lawyers than in fines to UEFA.
Does money not only score goals, does it also destroy sports rules?
Perhaps this statement will still be relevant, bearing in mind the bizarre judgment that was accompanied by equally weird agreements around the three-person Cas judge panel. Because the events startled even the British criminal authorities SFO, there is hope that something could come to light; an answer to the question: Does money not only score goals, does it also destroy sports rules?
So now Qatar is doing the Messi deal, sorry: Paris. This time there is no show process to fear before the Cas. Because in 2020, in the first Covid year, Uefa decreed that, as an exception, it would use the average of the balance sheets for two seasons as the basis for its FFP reviews. PSG, which in addition to Messi will still have to pay calibers like Neymar and Mbappé, also signaled to the fair play custodians in advance that all of the club’s sponsors would pay more money when Messi arrives.
That’s true, but it’s basically a joke. Because, of course, the majority of these sponsors are companies from (or with a connection to) Qatar. The host of the next soccer World Cup in 2022, who is now pushing itself into the global shop window with an Avengers armada. Much to the delight of beIN Sports, the Qatari TV broadcaster, PSG boss Nasser al-Khelaifi and who manages the international rights to the French one Ligue 1 until 2024. Wherever Messi is on it in the future, Qatar will be on it.
That is the message of this deal: In the financial crisis, the handful of the super-rich have finally floated away. So stop crying for Messi. Better take a look at where the journey of football is headed!