Menu
Download the app

SBJ subscribers – Enhance your experience with the revamped iOS app

International Football

In Middle Of Euro Crisis, Top End Of European Football Is Booming

Amidst a Eurozone financial crisis that has brought protestors to the streets, there is "one activity where business is booming: the top end of European football," according to Matt Scott of the London TELEGRAPH. Nowhere is it more evident than at Ligue 1 club Paris Saint-Germain and Russian Premier league side Zenit St. Petersburg. Both clubs have "stunned the football world" with their transfer spending. It cost PSG more than £50M ($80.4M) in the summer to bring in the AC Milan duo of  Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Thiago Silva from Milan; Zenit spent £64M ($102.9M) to acquire Hulk and Witsel from Portuguese clubs Porto and Benfica. Laurent Perrin knows PSG "better than most" as the chief correspondent covering the club at Le Parisien. His explanation for why Qatar Sports Investment, a sovereign-wealth fund controlled by the Qatari crown prince, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani has spent so much is simple. Perrin: "Before everything it is for the image of Qatar. They have calculated their every investment. They know it is virtually impossible to make money from football. But they also know that football is the best way to promote an image." Qatar’s French-football interests extend beyond PSG. National broadcaster Al-Jazeera has bought up the rights to Ligue 1, the UEFA Champions League and the UEFA Europa League "through a subsidiary pay-TV channel it has set up in France: Be In Sports." Political patronage "also seems to have benefited Zenit." In its case, the money has come from Gazprom, "the jewel in the Russian bear’s natural-resources crown," which is both the shirt sponsor and 100% owner of the club. The Kremlin holds a majority stake in Gazprom. The strategy seems to be to project Russia’s "financial and sporting might through the medium of club football," just as the Olympic Games did for the Soviet Union (TELEGRAPH, 10/3).

SBJ Morning Buzzcast: March 25, 2024

NFL meeting preview; MLB's opening week ad effort and remembering Peter Angelos.

Big Get Jay Wright, March Madness is upon us and ESPN locks up CFP

On this week’s pod, our Big Get is CBS Sports college basketball analyst Jay Wright. The NCAA Championship-winning coach shares his insight with SBJ’s Austin Karp on key hoops issues and why being well dressed is an important part of his success. Also on the show, Poynter Institute senior writer Tom Jones shares who he has up and who is down in sports media. Later, SBJ’s Ben Portnoy talks the latest on ESPN’s CFP extension and who CBS, TNT Sports and ESPN need to make deep runs in the men’s and women's NCAA basketball tournaments.

SBJ I Factor: Nana-Yaw Asamoah

SBJ I Factor features an interview with AMB Sports and Entertainment Chief Commercial Office Nana-Yaw Asamoah. Asamoah, who moved over to AMBSE last year after 14 years at the NFL, talks with SBJ’s Ben Fischer about how his role model parents and older sisters pushed him to shrive, how the power of lifelong learning fuels successful people, and why AMBSE was an opportunity he could not pass up. Asamoah is 2021 SBJ Forty Under 40 honoree. SBJ I Factor is a monthly podcast offering interviews with sports executives who have been recipients of one of the magazine’s awards.

Shareable URL copied to clipboard!

https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Global/Issues/2012/10/04/International-Football/PSG.aspx

Sorry, something went wrong with the copy but here is the link for you.

https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Global/Issues/2012/10/04/International-Football/PSG.aspx

CLOSE