As Nasser al-Khelaifi watches from the Emirates Stadium directors’ box on Tuesday night, he can reflect that Paris Saint-Germain may be a month from the latest monumental victory of his career. Champions League success has been a long time coming, given the plan of Qatar Sports Investments had been to reign Europe within five years of its takeover in 2011, but the fresh sense of clarity in PSG’s approach is on the verge of reaping rich dividends. The serial Ligue 1 winners could soon sit atop club football just as their president rules it from the corridors of power.
Khelaifi is, in the words of one seasoned observer, “the most powerful person in sport that nobody has heard of”. That oversight is probably true of a British public to which his influence is yet to cut through. If nothing else the Qatari should receive a slightly more amenable welcome at Arsenal that the one afforded in November by fans of Bayern Munich, who certainly seemed well versed in his various functions when PSG visited.
“Minister, club owner, TV rights holder, Uefa exco member & ECA chairman all in one?” read a banner on the Südkurve. Another accused Khelaifi of being a “plutocrat”. The intention was to highlight, in terms for which Bayern later apologised to Khelaifi, the problems inherent in the sheer breadth and depth of power he has come to grasp.
Barely a critique of Khelaifi passes without mention of his multiple functions. At the heart of most rancour is the concept of “double-hatting”. This phrase was central to the judgment of the independent commission that ruled the Premier League’s associated party transaction rules were unlawful after a legal challenge from Manchester City. The commission referred to the Premier League as “double hatting”, which it described as “acting as both the regulator of a sporting competition, such as football, and engaging at the same time in economic activity by, for example, the sale of media rights”.
Across the channel there is no doubt Khelaifi wears many hats, often simultaneously. In addition to ruling supreme at PSG he is chair of Qatar Sports Investments, the BeIN media group and the European Club Association. The ECA, once viewed as little more than a lobby group, has become an elite competition organiser with 750 members under Khelaifi’s watch. It wields vast influence, crystallised by last year’s creation of a joint venture with Uefa to run the Champions League and Europa League. By virtue of holding his ECA position, Khelaifi is a member of Uefa’s executive committee.
While Khelaifi’s influence at Uefa is known to irritate several big clubs in other countries, particularly Barcelona and Real Madrid, in France it is his dual role with PSG and BeIN that really grates. The value of Ligue 1 media rights has collapsed from more than €1bn (£850,000) annually to less than €500m; to compound matters the main rights holder, Dazn, is seeking a refund on its €400m contribution after failing to attract sufficient subscribers. BeIN pays €100m a season for exclusive rights to the biggest game of each weekend, having had Ligue 1 rights since 2012, the year after QSI bought PSG.
Khelaifi’s role in fiendishly difficult negotiations has long bred tension, which boiled over during an extraordinary Zoom meeting last summer in which numerous long-running grievances were aired. The Lens owner, Joseph Oughourlian, accused Khelaifi of being a bully and taking over the meeting, and said: “I think you need to understand a concept that has clearly escaped you at BeIN, or at PSG, or both, which is called ‘conflict of interest’.”
A video of Khelaifi’s aggressive behaviour during the call was published by France 2 in February and reflects poorly on a man who styles himself as a charming diplomat. Sources close to him paint a very different picture. It is their contention very selective clips were leaked by his enemies, chiefly the Lyon owner and Crystal Palace shareholder, John Textor, and Oughourlian. Significantly, they were the only two Ligue 1 owners who voted against the joint four-year deal with Dazn and BeIN last summer.
While skirting around the issue of whether the chairman of a bidding company should even have attended the meeting Khelaifi’s camp contend that BeIn, rather than taking advantage of its position, would have happily walked away from Ligue 1 if the clubs had received credible alternative offers. “We didn’t want the rights, but the [2018] Mediapro deal collapsed, and Amazon and Canal+ walked away,” a BeIN source said. “The only alternative was a direct-to-consumer streaming service being pushed by Textor, which didn’t stack up, so Nasser reluctantly got involved and helped do a deal.”
Khelaifi has also clashed with Gianni Infantino, most recently last year when he was frustrated by a perceived lack of progress on commercial and broadcasting deals for this summer’s Club World Cup. “Nasser was unhappy and let Gianni know all about it,” said a source who witnessed a particularly feisty exchange at one meeting. “Nasser thought the clubs should be running the tournament, as they effectively do now at Uefa, but Fifa and Gianni wanted to stay in control.”
There is no doubting Khelaifi’s commitment to the Club World Cup. It was backed by the ECA with a vigour that has caused some from clubs lower down the food chain to scratch their heads. The ECA signed a fresh memorandum of understanding with Fifa in 2023, backing the tournament and the current international match calendar. Some figures query whether that was in the best interests of most ECA members, suggesting this stance would not have passed if taken to a vote. Khelaifi’s critics believe he displays an autocratic style of management and describe the ECA as a body that privileges the elite’s interests; allies paint a more open-minded picture.
He would almost certainly not have ended up in so privileged a role without the Super League fiasco in 2021. Khelaifi would contend he never wanted the ECA position vacated by Andrea Agnelli, who resigned after the failed breakaway. Other candidates were thin on the ground after the renegade clubs temporarily, in most cases, left the ECA. He was able to style himself as the anti-Super League option, although Agnelli later claimed the pair had discussed a similar idea in 2020. Opinions differ over whether Khelaifi rode to the rescue during a crisis-stricken period or was simply its beneficiary.
What will come next for Khelaifi if PSG, their young and vital side a far cry from the galáctico-bloated proposition for which football sometimes appeared secondary, lift the Champions League trophy in Munich? He has frequently lamented what he perceives as hostility towards his, and Qatar’s, interests in France. That reared up again when he was placed under formal investigation in February as part of a complex case involving the businessman Arnaud Lagardère. He denies wrongdoing and recently told an interview with German media that Qatar is “steadily divesting and investing in more welcoming and fair environments”. The longevity of their intense commitment to PSG remains to be seen.
Some sources adjacent to football’s authorities suspect Khelaifi has designs on the Fifa presidency, a role that would certainly complete his rise. He is known to be curious about the possibility of playing a Champions League final, and perhaps the semi-finals, in the US. The recent deal he helped mastermind between UC3, the name of Uefa and ECA’s joint venture, and the US promotions company Relevent Sports may hasten that eventuality. Pulling off such a controversial move could, in this expansionist climate, do his cause no harm. Khelaifi is also believed to be keen on investigating cross-border leagues within Europe.
Whether or not such schemes materialise, there is little prospect of his clout reducing. Should PSG put one foot in the final on Tuesday, offering up the prospect of atoning for their defeat by Bayern Munich in 2020, Khelaifi’s highest-profile project will be poised to fulfil his vision at last.
