Ligue 1 English

Qatar owners pump in another €171m into PSG to cover pandemic losses

Paris Saint-Germain’s Qatari owners have injected another €171 million into the club to help alleviate the financial burden created by the global health crisis.

Qatar Sports Investment (QSI), owners of the Parisian club since 2011, pumped in the additional cash injections at the start of the 2021/22 season, according to French media outlet Sportune, thus bringing the total capital put into the club so far by QSI to €511.5 million.

The new funds will be particularly useful in helping to mitigate the financial imponderances brought about by the coronavirus pandemic and the losses of the last two seasons. In the 2019/20 season, PSG’s revenue stood at €559.8 million, but the club still registered a net loss of €124.2 million. For the 2020/21 season, that loss is estimated to have doubled.

The silver lining in the dark clouds is that summer fans have returned to the stadiums in the Ligue 1, and have begun to drive match-day revenues back to pre-pandemic levels, and the LFP is hopeful that through its new commercial and media rights subsidiary, it can raise up to €1 billion to provide a lifeline for ailing French elite clubs.

French club football has been in crisis ever since the lucrative €750 million TV rights deal with Mediapro imploded. The Spanish agency paid €100 million in compensation, but the collapse left clubs cash-strapped.