Paris Saint-Germain won the Champions League 14 years after the takeover by Qatar’s State Fund. The victory is also an expression of the huge influence that club boss Nasser Al-Khelaifi has on European football.
Modesty was not the requirement of the hour. After the team of Paris Saint-Germain won the Champions League Cup with a sovereign 5-0 against Inter Milan, the team with Al-Khelaifi lifted the club’s decisive man on the shoulders.
For around 50 million euros, Katar’s state fund bought Paris Saint-Germain and Tilgte 20 million euros in debt. Since then, the country has been in the club around two billion euros, which was regularly failed in the Champions League under the leadership Al-Khelaifis, even with stars such as Messi, Neymar or Mbappé. “I knew we could-but I didn’t know that it would be this year,” said Al-Khelaifi at the US broadcaster CBS after the final. Now he is also at the top of sport – the most powerful functional in European football was before.
Nasser al-Khelaifi with the Champions League Cup
Super League helped al-Khelaifi influential Positions
Al-Khelaifi’s promotion began with the big bang when the Super League was proclaimed in 2021. Numerous big clubs from England, Italy and Spain left the influential European club association ECA when they wanted to go through the competition without the UEFA. Among them were Juventus Turin and the previous ECA boss Andrea Agnelli.
Close confidants: Uefa President Aleksander Ceferin (left) with Nasser al-Khelaifi
Al-Khelaifi, on the other hand, remained loyal to the UEFA and her president Aleksander Ceferin. He became a decisive ally of UEFA in the fight against the Super League. The reward: the remaining rest of the ECA at that time determined al-Khelaifi to their new chairman.
So he increased numerous offices:
- President of Paris Saint-Germain
- Chairman of the ECA
- Member of the UEFA Executive Committee, the most powerful body in European football
- Deputy Chairman of UC3, a joint company of ECA and UEFA, that the commercial rights of the Champions League market, such as the TV rights
- Chairman of the sports division of Qatar’s state fund, which, for example, controls Paris Saint-Germain
- Chairman of Bein Sports, a catarian sports broadcaster
All of these roles create enormous influence in European football, who is closely linked to Katar’s leadership. Interest conflicts are obvious, for example, Al-Khelaifi sells the TV rights of the Champions League together with the UEFA to the transmitter that he leads.
Al-Khelaifi is rarely criticized in football. Javier Tebas, President of the Spanish league, said numerous functions about Al-Khelaifis: “He wears a lot of hats, there are conflicts of interest. And that cannot be. A leading actor like him cannot sit in these organizations and at the same time stand up to a television station who buys the transmission rights.”
The organized fan scene of Bayern Munich also criticized these roles in a champions League game with saying bands, she presented a crossed-out portrait of al-Khelaifis. Bayern publicly apologized. Such the headwind is rarely experiencing al-Khelaifi.
Bavaria fans criticize Nasser al-Khelaifi on sayings
Little criticism, a lot of power
In April at the UEFA Congress, hardly anyone was greeted with such warm words as he was. Ceferin praised the positive development of the UEFA competitions and said: “We owe that mostly wet. Thank you Nasser, my friend, for your vision and your friendship with European football.”
His own power and that of the ECA-KHELAIFI continued to expand, it has long been considered the third large association in addition to the UEFA and FIFA, but at least as the decisive interest group: The club World Cup of FIFA President Gianni Infantino can only take place because Al-Khelaifi and the clubs are for it. The rules of the UEFA financial fair play? The reform of the European Cup? The money distribution in the Champions League? The decisive desk on all of these topics is that of al-Khelaifi.
ECA chairwoman Nasser Al-Khelaifi (left) and FIFA President Gianni Infantino when signing her fundamental agreement
Several Legal proceedings set
Al-Khelaifi was always at the center of investigations. In 2020, a Swiss court was about corruption in the awarding of media rights for the 2026 World Cup and the 2030 World Cup – Al -Khelaifi was acquitted. In 2023, a former confidante extortion threw him and tried kidnapping. In 2025, he is investigated because he is said to have influenced a voting behavior in the Lagardère group acting with sports rights. Al-Khelaifi’s condemnation never occurred, he denies any misconduct.
Nasser Al-Khelaifi (middle) 2015 with the former French President Nicolas Sarkozy (left) and the Emir of Qatar, Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani
Al-Khelaifi also rejected that the investment at Paris Saint-Germain is said to have played a role in the award of the 2022 World Cup 2022. The accusation: At a meeting shortly before the World Cup award in November 2010 with France President Nicolas Sarkozy, the UEFA President Michel Platini and today’s Emir of Qatar, Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, it is also said to have been part of a deal. “This rumor is wrong,” said Al-Khelaifi in 2019 of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. When we decided in 2004 to buy a European club and targeted Paris, we didn’t even think of the World Cup. “
In 2011, Al-Khelaifi already thought of the Champions League. At that time, PSG announced the plan to win the Champions League within five years, but it took 14 years – but the trophy did not need to rule football.