Paris Saint-Germain have been Europe’s big spenders these past few seasons, ever since they were taken over in 2011 by the Qatari Investment Authority (QIA).
But this summer could be a bit different for the Ligue 1 champions. They may need to sell a few players in order to make any new exciting purchases.
That will mainly be down to UEFA’s financial fair play rules. The Parisians have already been found guilty of going against these new rules. It has been reported that their particular fine won’t be too high, it could be around £20m. That looks to be more than half the fine being handed out to Manchester City. It is a sum that PSG can easily afford.
But the fine will have a greater impact on the club than just the initial cost. It will show the QIA that UEFA is indeed watching them and will punish any wrongdoing that they believe is being done by any club in Europe.
So PSG can’t just spend recklessly as they may have done in the past. They will need to do more to balance the books if they are to continue to pursue the best available talents.
That will mean that they sell some of their current crop of stars. The need isn’t financial but they will not want greater sanctions placed upon them next year from Europe’s football governing body. A cut in their Champions League squad from a pool of twenty-five to a group of twenty-one could prove costly in any ambition to win the Champions League.
So the European elite may look over the PSG squad and make bids for good players that may be sold off by the French side, so they can fund deals for even better talent.
The list of possible players that could be sacrificed isn’t a bad one at all. Players such as Ezequiel Lavezzi, Gregory van der Wiel, Jeremy Menez, Javier Pastore and Lucas Moura have all been mentioned as possible departing stars.
I’d imagine that Lucas and Lavezzi would get the most admiring glances. Both are players capable of changing games when they are on top-form. In Paris both have suffered from dips in form and they’ve been rotated a lot.
Lavezzi prefers to command more of a staring role than is afforded to him by the Ligue 1 champions. You can’t be the star when Zlatan Ibrahimovic is in the same town! At a different club with no Zlatan, and you might see Lavezzi flourish again as he did for Napoli. The Argentine international is tricky on either flank and can usually pop up with a few important goals and assists. He has impressed with PSG since the turn of the year. Ideal for a side who need a creative, maverick spark to take them onto a new level.
Moura came to Paris with a huge reputation. He turned down Man United in favour of Les Rouge-et-Bleu. But since his £40m move the Brazilian wide-man has failed to perform consistently well enough to show that he was worth all that money. That said the twenty-one year old has shown glimpses of better things but he just can’t manage it in a big run of games. The speedy winger may look at his failure to secure a World Cup spot with Brazil as motivation to leave and start afresh somewhere new. Still a bright prospect that potential suitors would take a gamble on.
Out of the others, I think Jeremy Menez could be a very decent signing for the right club. At PSG he has become a bit lost in a squad full of top class talent. But his own talents can’t be overlooked. Like most good/decent attacking creative midfielders he struggles to always preform consistently well. But when on top of his game he can provide goals and that bit of magic that helps unlock stubborn defences. If he’s ready to wave goodbye to his childhood club then he could be another that is ready to reinvent his career!
Argentine midfielder Javier Pastore was PSG’s first major signing of the QIA era. But that pressure didn’t sit well with the former Palermo star. For too long now the middleman has been seen as a fringe player in Paris and rarely contributes enough. Has had a few impressive displays in the cup for PSG this year and that has meant he has kept himself in the shop window for a summer move. PSG will never get their €39.8m investment back though, they’ll be lucky to get €10m!
Gregory van der Wiel had a really impressive World Cup back in 2010. He also impressed at Ajax with his pace and ability to run up and down the right flank all game. But the Dutchman has failed to resurrect that form since his big move to France. Seen as bit of a weak-link for the Parisians his days at PSG could be numbered. He has improved in his second year but not enough to stop his current employers in their pursuit of Barcelona’s Dani Alves. If the Brazilian joins PSG then Van der Weil will surely be on his way out.
Now all these moves away aren’t cut and dry. PSG must know that they will struggle to recoup any of those players transfer fees that they paid for in the first place. They overpaid big time on these footballers and no club will go near them for anything like the original price. As long as PSG know that then teams will come to the table with respectable bids.
The English press seem to be creaming themselves about the chance of Edison Cavani joining an English Premier League side. We have seen stories that the Uruguayan has fallen out with coach Laurent Blanc and dislikes playing wide right instead of playing in his preferred role through the middle. But he is on a lucrative deal and PSG don’t need to sell their best talent. Yes they need to sell some decent squad players but others like Cavani, Zlatan, Thiago Silva and Salvatore Sirigu certainly don’t need to be sold off. A player may not like his current situation but that doesn’t mean a team will then sell him. Just look at what happened with Wayne Rooney and Luis Suarez last summer.
This pre-season should be different for PSG and their squad. But that might just mean that the Paris Saint-Germain business model becomes more self-sufficient, the players get moves that will further their careers and other sides in Europe get good recruits at more affordable prices.