Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) are champions of Europe for the first time in their history. They demolished Inter Milan 5-0 in the Champions League Final in Munich.
Football clubs have become the playthings of autocratic nation states with bottomless pockets
Forget the Premier League and the sporting abomination that is the revamped Fifa Club World Cup. The Champions League is the pinnacle of club football -the competition that every top team wants to win.
The final was billed as a mouth-watering clash of opposites: youth and free-flowing football (PSG) versus experience and the nous to always find a way to win (Inter). But the final was a huge anticlimax: PSG dominated the match from start to finish.
The French quickly took the lead in the 12th minute with a goal from Achraf Hakimi – likely the best right back in world football right now. The second goal came in the 20th minute, a deflected strike from Desire Doue, the 19-year-old wonder kid. Doue scored the third in the 64th minute. It became 4-0 in minute 73, courtesy of Khvicha Kvaratskhelia. The fifth and final goal came from Senny Mayulu, a youngster fresh out of the PSG academy. The final was as one-sided as it gets, an utter humiliation for Inter who looked lost and bereft of belief. The French were simply too good.
PSG’s manager Luis Enrique deserves special mention. He has already won the Treble with Barcelona, and has now repeated this extraordinary feat with PSG. Only the great Pep Guardiola has previously achieved the Treble with two different teams. The new all-conquering PSG is entirely Enrique’s creation, built to press high and dominate possession. The prima donna superstars of old (the likes of Neymar) have been jettisoned and replaced by a team of young strivers. They are the ones who delivered on the biggest stage of all.
This wasn’t just a game of football though. The match took place against a backdrop of big money. In the case of PSG, it’s not just any money but nation-state money courtesy of Qatar. PSG have spent an estimated €1.9 billion (£1.6 billion) since Qatari Sports Investments group (a subsidiary of Qatar’s state-run sovereign wealth fund) bought the club in 2011.
The purchase price for PSG back then was €70m (£60m). The club is now valued at somewhere around €4.25 bn (£3.7 bn). Winning the Champions League has always been the ultimate goal for PSG’s super-wealthy Gulf owners. Nasser al-Khelaifi, the club president and a former professional tennis player, also happens to be a minister in the Qatari government.
The Qataris have been ridiculed in recent years for spending huge sums but still failing to win the Champions League with PSG, a club that only came into being in 1970. Rival fans like to mock it as a ‘plastic’ club with no real history or soul. Who’s laughing now?
Even so, PSG’s triumph casts a darker shadow. It is an uncomfortable victory for ‘sportswashing’, the term used for authoritarian regimes investing in football and other sports to enhance their global image. Winning European football’s most prestigious club competition — together with the praise and global profile this brings— amounts to the ultimate sportswashing triumph.
Football clubs have become the playthings of autocratic nation states with bottomless pockets. Manchester City is owned by Abu Dhabi; Newcastle have Saudi owners. Few fans seen to care much that their clubs are being taken over by profoundly undemocratic states. They might be too busy counting the trophies.
No footballing neutral will begrudge PSG their moment in the sun. Less welcome is that the victory amounts to an undeniable triumph for Qatar, a country with an authoritarian political system and a dismal human rights record. Is it any wonder that the Qataris would rather everyone focused on the time and money they’ve spent helping PSG win the biggest prize in European club football? That’s what sportswashing is all about, after all.
Comments