Why bother with international matches when countries can now own clubs? « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News, supporting the club, the players and the manager

By Tony Attwood

Looking at a league table after one match is rather like looking at a chest of drawers where only the knobs that help you open each drawer has delivered.  Not much clue to what the overall picture is going to be.

In France however, unhampered by the Olympiks, the Ligue 1 football season has delivered two games, and even before it got going the title had already been awarded.  Everyone agreed Paris St Germain would win the league this season, next, the one after, the one after and so on.

And that’s interesting because I remember a commentator saying exactly the same thing as that when Chelsea first got their billions.  Chelsea would win this year, next year, the year after, and everyone would stop going.

In fact the links between PSG and Chelsea are stronger than one might imagine.  PSG was an artificially created club which was set up by pushing two little clubs together, to fill a stadium.  Chelsea was created in 1905 as a club to occupy an unused stadium.  In fact Chelsea applied to join the league in 1905 without there being a club, a team, a supporter, or anything.   There was just an idea of a football club in the stadium – and the League gave them a place in the second division.   “No history” is the common phrase, I believe.

So, what of PSG?  Well, here’s the league table thus far (with two knobs on, as it were)…

1		Olympique Lyonnais	2	2	0	0	5	1	+4	6
2		Olympique de Marseille	2	2	0	0	3	0	+3	6
3		SC Bastia	2	2	0	0	5	3	+2	6
4		Girondins de Bordeaux	2	2	0	0	4	2	+2	6
5		FC Lorient	2	1	1	0	4	3	+1	4
6		LOSC Lille	2	1	1	0	3	2	+1	4
7		Toulouse FC	2	1	1	0	3	2	+1	4
8		AS Nancy Lorraine	2	1	1	0	2	1	+1	4
9		Valenciennes FC	2	1	1	0	1	0	+1	4
10		Stade Brestois 29	2	1	0	1	1	1	0	3
11		AC Ajaccio	2	1	1	0	1	0	+1	2
12		Paris Saint-Germain	2	0	2	0	2	2	0	2
13		Montpellier Hérault SC	2	0	1	1	2	3	-1	1
14		OGC Nice	2	0	1	1	0	1	-1	1
15		AS Saint-Etienne	2	0	0	2	2	4	-2	0
16		Evian TG FC	2	0	0	2	2	4	-2	0
17		Stade de Reims	2	0	0	2	1	3	-2	0
18		Stade Rennais FC	2	0	0	2	0	2	-2	0
19		FC Sochaux-Montbéliard	2	0	0	2	2	5	-3	0
20		ESTAC Troyes	2	0	0	2	1	5	-4	0

And rather amusingly top dog at the moment is  Olympique Lyonnais which is managed by our old pal Remi Garde – the first man Arsene Wenger signed (although to be fair most books now say that Remi and Patrick Vieira were signed on the same day, following a phone call from Mr Wenger in Japan).

Of course only two games are gone, but even so, quite amusing to see PSG so far down the league.

Paris is not London of course, not least because against our 12 league teams (or is it 11, sorry I lost count half way through) PSG is the only Parisian club.

So whereas the crises in London are shared around all the problems in Parisian football hit PSG.   They have spent €200m+ on transfers in the past year alone bringing in names like Zlatan Ibrahimovic, and Thiago Motta and helping clubs like Milan balance their books.

Now the French know what the English league feels like – where one player’s salary can be more than the entire income even of  Bordeaux, said to be the fifth-richest French club.

So Paris Saint-Germain, not Man City, are now the richest club in the world – owned a they are by Qatar Sport Investment, which is part owned by the Qatari government and part by the Qatari Olympic Committee, which is a novel notion.

In reality PSG is, I think, the first big club in the world to be owned by a country – in this case Qatar itself , rather than by a member of the Abu Dhabi royal family.  It opens up a whole new can of worms as we should now ask, why bother with internationals when countries can own clubs?

Already there is much gnashing of teeth as coaches of various teams say that coming second in the league will be as good as winning it, since there is no chance of beating a club this rich.

With Leonardo is the director of football of PSG, Carlo Ancelotti is the coach and the player list is stunning although they are talking of taking on Man City, Real Mad and Chelsea in the next round of transfers.

One part of the plan is to make French TV rights more attractive, rather than something sold to little filler channels like ESPN.  But to do that the French will have to follow the Spanish model and create a two team league, and then hype up the question of which of the two will win.  If you don’t fall for the hype it is a yawn.

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Al-Jazeera TV, owned by the same country as owns PSG now has a French sports channel, which owns the rights to Ligue 1 and also to the Champions League matches.  As for the country itself, it is buying publicity ahead of the 2022 World Cup.  So PSG know they are probably safe for 10 years – but after that?

As for PSG itself, it is extraordinary that they are still not instantly dominating.  I thought they were going to win the league last season, but once Ancelotti came in part way through the season, things slipped away.

What is interesting though is that as far as I can see, virtually all Man C fans like the money that allowed them to get their trophy last season.  I don’t think the same is true in Paris.   Rich men and rich countries that own clubs tend to keep their distance from the people who merely turn up to watch football at the ground.  (Apparently the management of the crowd at PSG is so great that even the Mexican Waves are orchestrated by the club).

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But it is interesting to look back to the early days of Mr Wenger at Arsenal at which time one hardly saw a French player in the league.  Now we think it odd because we only had one player of ours playing for France in the Euros.  But the high profile players are still emerging from France – as Olivier Giroud shows.

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If it is certain that PSG will win the league, despite their average start, then they will join two other leagues where things are fairly sorted before the beginning.  One of course is Scotland where Celtic ought to win the treble (although they have hardly got off to a flying start either), and the other is the classic two horse race in Spain.
But Spain does take us once again to Malaga from whom we got Santi Cazorla, and whose billionaire owner seems to have deserted them.   Still, its not all bad for Malaga.   Sixteen-year-old Fabrice Olinga made history on Saturday when he became the youngest ever player to score in La Liga, scoring the winning goal against  Celta Vigo.

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