Club President Nasser Al-Khelaifi after Paris won the Champions League final this year
Photo: DPA/DPA/AP/Michel Euler
Not only romantics who mourning the old days of Pele, Franz Beckenbauer and Michel Platini, but also regular observers of the current ball tread are agreed: professional football was partly sold to financially strong global players. Whether Manchester City, RB Leipzig, FC Valencia or the AS Roma – all of these clubs have one, we say: questionable owners. But the symbol of the current football madness is the reigning Champions League winner and French subscription master Paris Saint-Germain (PSG). The owner of the association from the French capital is Qatar Sports Investments, his president of the Qatarian businessman Nasser Al-Khelaifi. Since the takeover in 2011, the owner is said to have invested around two billion euros in the club. Superstars such as Neymar, Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappé have run in the PSG jersey.
If al-Khelaifi is shown cheering on the grandstand in the Parc of the Princes, I get either a bad mood or a nausea. The evening usually went. This man looks very well -groomed, is eloquent and seems to be friendly. And yet it is a kind of antihero. Held because he gave the Paris audience in rows and made PSG a heavyweight in the international football circus. Anti because hardly anyone grants him his fame. Because everyone can buy success, but the person is far from being. Also not al-Khelaifi and PSG.
The worst clubs
FIFA is currently hosting the club World Cup in the USA. It is the next level of money bags in professional football. And a good occasion to think about the most overestimated football clubs in Loser episode.
Antihelden know especially from the cinema, more precisely from the cinema, more precisely: from the so -called spaghetti westerns of the 60s and 70s. “Two glor -rich Halzunken”, “play the song of death” or “for a handful of dollars” every film fan should know, no: worship. Absolute classics in film history, where any criticism is prohibited. There the heroes are really anti: mostly it is half a spark with dirty clothes that chase up on revenge or a few US dollars, shoot everything that moves, insidious and deported: real outsider.
The action usually takes place against a dusty-off backdrop, sometimes flanked by a beautiful woman who is afraid of the sight of the protagonist. The antihero from the Italian western is the counter-design of the selfless and decent man, as he was often portrayed in US western. Hollywood has always had his own view of the North American historiography, not only in the Western genre.
So far have been published in this series:
Tumb is the hope (Schalke 04) by Alfons Huckebrink
Sorry, model boy (Arminia Bielefeld) by Fritz Tietz
Al-Khelaifi cannot be associated with the films of a Sergio Leone or Sergio Corbucci. Too elegant, too well styled and above all too smooth. Like a Weseraal, the Qatar winds through a cloudy, fitting water peppered with sports officials, business people and politicians. The anti -hero from the Italian cinema, on the other hand, are constantly teased everywhere, rebelled against bourgeois behavioral norms and also shot the bartender. Almost like the militant left.
This may be grossinity and at first glance repulsive, but also honest and sincere. And honestly, there is hardly anything left at PSG, certainly not sincerely.