Qatar Is Becoming a Player in French Sports
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Version 0 of 1. PARIS — Long an underwhelming also-ran of European soccer, underloved by most everyone but the French, France’s top league has entered what seems a new era, one of eye-popping salaries and international attention. Behind the shift is a tiny desert peninsula in the Persian Gulf, Qatar, a nation with little inherent interest in French soccer but with outsize ambitions and the oil money to pursue them. This year, Qatar Sports Investments, a branch of the emirate’s sovereign wealth fund, completed a buyout of Paris Saint-Germain, the French soccer club known as P.S.G., that reportedly valued the club at $130 million. With an additional investment of an estimated $340 million — a number unheard-of in French soccer — the team has recruited more than 15 players from the top ranks of international soccer, including the Swedish striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic, whose $21 million salary set a record in France. The team’s budget is up 100 percent from last year, to $392 million, more than twice that of any other club in the league. P.S.G.’s new slogan seems an apt summation of the Qatari approach to French soccer: “Dream Bigger.” Outside France, a fire hose of foreign money has in recent years radically altered the financial landscape of European soccer. Free-spending billionaires from Russia and the United Arab Emirates have forced a rethinking of what’s fair. The Qataris mean to transform P.S.G. into a club that will challenge Europe’s best and most extravagantly financed teams. Analysts say that aspiration aligns nicely with Qatar’s efforts to promote its national brand, especially ahead of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. P.S.G., those analysts suggest, could serve as a sort of international billboard. French commentators have been skeptical of the spending, though, not least because P.S.G. is only one of many recent Qatari acquisitions in France. Last year, Qatar Sports Investments purchased the P.S.G. handball team and stocked its roster with top international talent. Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund also has considerable holdings in several of France’s largest corporations, and since the French government has offered tax exemptions for Qatari real estate investments here, Qataris have accumulated a fleet of luxury properties valued at almost $4 billion. The country has also invested heavily in French television, the financial lifeblood of soccer here. Nasser al-Khelaifi, the P.S.G. president, is also — and perhaps not coincidentally — director of Al Jazeera Sports, which this year started two French channels under the name beIN Sport, upending the traditional order of televised soccer in France. For a reported $430 million per year, beIN Sport purchased live broadcast rights for 80 percent of matches in France’s top league, Ligue 1, as well as the rights to most Europa League and Champions League matches. BeIN Sport has assembled a stable of well-known commentators and personalities, including several who were plucked from Canal Plus, the network that long held a near monopoly on televised French soccer. As Qatar has invested in France, it has maintained a tight-lipped approach about its dealings, drawing criticism in the French news media. Perhaps most controversial has been a Qatari offer to finance social programs in France’s blighted suburbs, an initiative that has caused unease among French officials of all political stripes. The Qatari plan to “substitute” for the French state in those neighborhoods “deserves to be looked at twice,” wrote Nicolas Demorand, the top editor at the newspaper Libération, in a recent editorial. “Money, especially at a time of economic crisis, is an unstoppable arm,” Demorand wrote, noting the “whiff of mystery” around Qatar’s spending in France. Qatar Sports Investments declined to make a spokesman available for an interview. Outside analysts contend that, if money is little object, the P.S.G. soccer club represents a particularly prime investment. “Qatar is a smart little country,” said Lars Haue-Pedersen, managing director at TSE Consulting, which has worked for several years for Qatar’s Olympic committee. “If I had to give them 30-second advice, I would say: where is the market less developed than the big markets? France.” Ligue 1 “has always been a nice league but not the highest level,” Haue-Pedersen said, adding that it was probably the European league with the “most potential.” “By buying into European soccer, you are buying a marketing platform, of course, and a very attractive marketing platform,” he said. “And Paris is Paris, you know,” an ideal city for soliciting potential investors. In an e-mailed statement, al-Khelaifi, the P.S.G. president, confirmed that “the location of the club in Paris, a leading capital of world, was very important” in the decision to purchase the team. Though P.S.G. had a slow start to the season, the team is now the clear favorite to win Ligue 1, and it is expected to be a contender in future Champions League and Europa League competitions, prestigious tournaments in which French teams have rarely had much success. “In five years, P.S.G. is going to clobber everyone,” said Jacques Vendroux, the director of sports coverage for France’s public radio stations. French soccer “needs to have a great club, needs to make people dream,” Vendroux said. A French club has won the Champions League only once in nearly 60 years, he noted. Vendroux deplored what he called a lack of ambition among many French teams, and a sort of jealous xenophobia toward the Qataris. “We keep things amongst ourselves with our little clubs, with our little second division,” Vendroux said, adding, “Let’s open ourselves to the world!” For all the skepticism around the influx of Qatari money, the investment is also seen as stemming the decline of French soccer, which in recent years has seen falling revenue and the departure of the best French players for richer, better European leagues. Even in the midst of the European economic crisis, when soaring salaries might seem indecent, P.S.G.’s fans seem mostly thrilled with its new direction. “The goal is to win the title,” said Ridha Ben Jamaa, 33, a Tunisian Web developer shopping recently at the P.S.G. boutique on the Champs-Élysées. Ben Jamaa, a P.S.G. fan for over a decade — he follows the team from Tunis on Canal Plus, via satellite — and others may be wary of Qatar’s intentions in France, but those concerns do not extend to the world of sports. “For the P.S.G., I want there to be investment,” he said. His favorite player, the Argentine Javier Pastore, was recruited by the team last year in a $54 million deal, the largest ever in Ligue 1. That distinction was short-lived: P.S.G. this year acquired Ibrahimovic and the Brazilian Thiago Silva from A.C. Milan for about a combined $84 million. |