The last time French club, Paris Saint Germain won anything meaningful was the (now defunct) Cup Winners' Cup in 1996. Followed the next season by being runners up. Long before your Abramovich's, Sheikhs and multi billionnaires, PSG had dominated french football for the best part of a decade. That '96 squad included such luminaries as a cherubic Nicolas Anelka, Bernard Lama and Bruno N'Gotty, to name a few. The early nineties was a hugely successful time for PSG getting to the Champions League Semi-Finals, only for to be beaten by AC Milan. PSG won the three successive french league titles, as well as others either side of those, also.
Since then however, the french outfit's fortunes have dwindled and the club have endured a barren spell spanning over 15 years and 8 different managers. Arsenal board note....
On the 31st of May of this year, however Qatari Business Authority bought a 70% controlling stake in the club. QIA, as its known, is estimated to own in excess of $60 billion of assets. It holds 15.1% of shares within the London Stock Exchange. In 2010, QIA bought Harrods and Walt Disney and Miramax Films.
not a bad portfolio.....
since then, QIA have begun investing heavily in the club, in a bid to return the club to its glory days. The first action was to install the outgoing Inter coach and former player at PSG, Leonardo, as Director of Football, in July. Since his arrival PSG have ramped up the big money buying of players;
to begin with PSG coach Antoine Kombouare (also a former son of the french club) recruited Lorient's highly rated, french international striker Kevin Gameiro (above left) for 11 million euros. Then in the course of four days between July 25th and 28th, the club signed Roma winger Jeremy Menez for 8m euros and Blaise Matuidi from St Etienne for 7.5m euros (both photographed above right). Matuidi seen as the ideal replacement for the retiring Claude Makelele. Then 4 days later signing veteran midfielder Mohamed Sissoko from Juventus for around 8m euros. (above)
All summer QIA had been looking to unveil a big name signing and after weeks of speculation and in a major coup, trumping Chelsea, Javier Pastore (above with director of football, Leonardo) was unveiled officially on August 8th as a Paris Saint Germain player, leaving Italian club Palermo for a reported 38.5million euros.
“I am very happy to be here, Paris is a magnificent city, and PSG are an important club. When I left Argentina to come and play in Europe, I had no problem adapting, so I don’t see why it should be a problem now. My new teammates seem very nice, and that should help me integrate.”
“Leonardo convinced me to come here. The club have so much ambition and that helped too. The squad is of a very high level, and the team is young. There are so many reasons why I wanted to come here.”
Big price tag, yes, but this guy is young, has bags of talent, pace and is seen as the man to take PSG back to the big time. Pastore has already asserted himself into the Argentinian set-up often competing with Angel di Maria for a place in the starting 11.
And PSG may not be done there. Linked with Berbatov, Alvaro Perreira of Porto, and Gilardino, there could still be a frenzy of activity, in the same vein as there was at Eastlands (ahem, sorry the ETIHAD STADIUM, pft) at the end of August 2009)
sadly PSG didnt start their campaign in spectacular form, losing 0-1 to newly promoted Lorient.
well, Paris wasn't built in a day........
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