Opinion 

©TM/IMAGO

If European football had quickly forgotten about Paris Saint-Germain’s dominance of the continent during the World Cup, the reigning European champions quickly reminded it of the fact this week, when fresh reports underlined the financial muscle and pulling power of the Ligue 1 giants. Despite spending weeks in pursuit of RB Leipzig and Ivory Coast winger Yan Diomande, Liverpool were reportedly left reeling when PSG swooped in and offered better terms for the player. According to The Athletic’s David Ornstein, the young talent has agreed terms with the French club and will likely move for more than €100m, after Leipzig rejected an offer of €90m up front plus €10m in add-ons from Liverpool.

Rumour
	Y. Diomande
	Left Winger
Leipzig   60 % PSG Bundesliga Ligue 1

Rumour
	Y. Diomande
	Left Winger
Leipzig   47 % Liverpool Bundesliga Premier League

As if to underline the embarrassment of riches available to Luis Enrique in the French capital, Diomande could even remain at Leipzig for a further season before making his permanent move to PSG next year. Not only will the French club rob Liverpool of what was seemingly set to be their marquee summer signing, but they’ll do so without actually needing the young player’s services at this moment in time. In many ways, the transfer saga may come across as PSG needlessly flaunting their power and finances around the transfer window. But, in truth, a deal for the young Bundesliga star is just the latest example of how a shift in transfer policy has made PSG the best club in Europe.

Indeed, while the French club may have once been known as a club of top-heavy teams, trying to do their best to cram as many established stars into their starting XI as possible, the current team couldn’t be more different. Long gone are the days of Lionel Messi, Neymar and Kylian Mbappé tussling for control and influence in the final third, and in their place is a Luis Enrique team that is not only well-balanced but also far younger than previous iterations. For example, while PSG’s starting XI in the Champions League final was almost identical to Arsenal’s, the average age of their bench was four years younger. And the oldest player that came off the Parisian bench that night was 24-year-old Gonçalo Ramos.

When we take a look back through the age of previous PSG squads over the course of the last 10 years, we can clearly see a big shift in how the club has looked to lower the average age of its stars. As the graphic above shows, the Ligue 1 giants tended to see the average age of their starting XI in league matches hover between 26 and 28 between 2016/17 and 2022/23. However, in the summer of 2023, there was a dramatic shift in transfer policy, and that average age figure has plummeted quite significantly. As such, PSG went from having an average age of 26.9 in 22/23 to an average age of 24.7 in 23/24, with that average now sitting steady on exactly 23.5 over the course of the last two seasons.

When we take a look through PSG’s transfer history, we can clearly see when the club made a concerted effort to lower the age of its squad by signing younger players. As the graph below illustrates, the French giants went through a period of signing older players in their late twenties between 2017/18 and 2021/22. This included several players who joined on free transfers as well-known stars, such as Dani Alves (34), Gianluigi Buffon (40), Georginio Wijnaldum (30), Sergio Ramos (35) and, most notably, Messi, who joined the club in the summer of 2021 at the age of 34. In that period of time, the club spent €748m on transfer fees, but clearly spent an unknown but almost certainly astronomical amount of money on salaries.

As previously noted, this then shifted dramatically in the summer of 2023. That summer, alongside Messi departing for MLS and Neymar being sold to Al-Hilal in Saudi Arabia, Mbappé confirmed his intentions to depart the club 12 months later to join Real Madrid. The French giants could have capitulated after losing so much star power, but PSG instead decided to embark on an unprecedented rebuild that saw them spend €454m on new players in that season alone – the €350m alone that was spent in the summer window remains the third-highest amount spent by a club in a single transfer window. Out went Neymar and Messi, in came Ousmane Dembélé, Bradley Barcola and Hugo Ekitiké.

The club continued with this policy of spending big on younger talents the following season, with 23-year-old Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, 19-year-old João Neves and 19-year-old Désiré Doué joining, among others, in another sizable spending spree to the tune of €256m. Both seasons saw the club spend a combined €710m on new players, which was an almost identical sum to what PSG spent in the five seasons between 2017 and 2022. As such, only one club in all of European football (Chelsea: €1.05b) have spent more money on new players than PSG, since Mbappé announced his departure from the club and kicked off the Parisian club’s rebuild.

Of course, spending money is one thing and winning trophies is something else entirely. But what has ensured PSG’s spending sprees have translated into unprecedented success in Europe was the appointment of Enrique to manage the first team. Alongside younger players intent on proving their worth in the French capital, Enrique has instilled a style of play that capitalises on their physicality and speed. While Kvaratskhelia and Doué may not yet have the same star power as Neymar or Messi, they do undoubtedly work harder on the pitch when they don’t have the ball. That, more than anything else, has allowed PSG to outspend most European rivals off the pitch, while also outplaying them on it. And whether Diomande makes his move to the club this summer or in 12 months, he’ll be joining a well-oiled machine that was rebuilt three years ago and now works perfectly.