The president of the French PSG, the Qatari Nasser Al-Khelaifi, defended on Monday the importance of investment in European football and considered that the debts of some clubs are “a danger” for the future of the sport.
As part of his videoconference speech at the Football Talks forum, which takes place in Cidade do Futebol, in Oeiras, the Qatari-born businessman also warned that “the threat of Covid-19 is still present”, especially because ” Not all clubs fully recovered from Covid-19.”
“Of course the effect was bigger on the smaller clubs, but we are all learning. Sustainability is important and football is changing rapidly, everyone is working on investments in football,” he said.
The director of the French club was clear: “We invest, we don’t buy, we invest in football because we love football, PSG and our fans.”
“Soccer must have investment and grow because other sports are investing a lot and if we don’t invest in soccer, the investment is going to go to other sports. The new sports model to which we must aspire goes through the possibility of investing”, recalled the Owner of PSG. .
Nasser Al-Khelaifi defended that “during the Covid-19 period, football survived thanks to investment” and was also critical of the business model used by other clubs, which in his opinion could harm the future of the sport.
“Many clubs have huge debts. Is it healthy? There are heavily indebted clubs and that is a danger for football,” he characterized.
The Parisian leader explained that “at PSG, social networks have gone from hundreds of thousands to more than 100 million”, and “the French League is shown in many countries”.
“I am proud of that. I go to Los Angeles or Miami, I see the PSG shirt and that projects France. If we have a small company and we want it to be global, we have to invest. , the clubs do not grow. We want medium-sized clubs to grow and that improves competition”, predicted the investor and businessman.
Finally, Nasser Al-Khelaifi encouraged the commitment to women’s football.
“Diversity is extremely important to us. We were one of the first clubs to invest and believe in women’s football, we started investing in 2011 and competing in 2012. We have seen the great success of the Women’s European Championship and this year will also be huge. We had 43,000 fans watching the games”, he recalled enthusiastically.
Asked if he thinks women’s football can generate profits, the president of PSG and owner of the company that runs the French club (QSI) has no doubts.
“Definitely. It will take time, but the clubs are investing. We need to have a competitive women’s Champions League and a Europa League. We need to focus more, there is also the future, although there is still a lot to do”. do, that is, in the lower categories. We will get there for sure,” she assured.
Source: TSF
