(BFM Bourse) – For decades, the salary of professional footballers has been the subject of fiery debate as they are perceived as indecent by most of the population. More recently, the details of the extension of the contract of the star player of PSG Kylian Mbappé revealed by The Parisian set fire to the powder. To cover ever more stratospheric salaries, how many barrels of oil must Qatar, owner of the capital club, produce?
The details of Kylian Mbappé’s contract extension with Paris Saint Germain have once again reignited a heated debate over the salaries of professional football players. The case caused a stir, as did the question of the remuneration of the bosses of the largest French companies. PSG would have paid more than 600 million euros in gross wages in total over three seasons to keep the star Bondy in his favorite eleven, according to The Parisian. The capital club would have exploded the counters by signing the biggest contract in the football world.
To afford the services of the star of the France team has a price. Kylian Mbappé’s salary, which represents the equivalent of 210 million euros per year, swallows up a quarter of PSG’s annual budget. In addition to PSG number 7, the capital club must not look at the expense to afford the best locker room in Ligue 1. “Football has changed” to use the words of the 2018 world champion, just like the sums committed by the clubs to be more and more competitive.
Gulf giants at the helm of major European clubs
Since being taken over by Qatar Sports Investments (QSI) in 2011, Paris Saint Germain have been able to attract the best players in the world. Javier Pastore’s record contract in 2012, through the arrival of Zlatan Ibrahimovic in the summer of that same year, not to mention David Beckham’s freelance in the winter of 2013, PSG has been very active on the market for transfers in the early 2010s. The results on the green meadow were visible, PSG then dominated French football by winning four titles of Champion of France in a row (2012-2013, 2013-2014, 2014-2015 and 2015- 2016). It is above all thanks to the support of a State with almost inexhaustible funds that the capital club was able to afford Neymar for 222 million euros and Kylian Mbappé on the occasion of a loan with an option to buy 180 million euros. These two purchases thus marked the two biggest transfers in the history of football.
PSG is not the only European club to benefit from the largesse of a sovereign wealth fund from a Gulf state. The football clubs of Newcastle and Manchester City are also under the protectorate of the immense fortunes of the countries of the Middle East.
Sheikh Mansour Bin Zayed Al Nahya, a member of the Abu Dhabi royal family, was the first to afford a football club with the takeover of Manchester City in 2008. Then in 2021, the Public Investment Fund (PIF) , the Saudi sovereign wealth fund, paid the tidy sum of 350 million euros to seize the Newcastle club. To the delight of Magpies supporters whose heart club was vegetating in the unenvious place of penultimate in the Premier League. To date, there are 13 European clubs which are mainly controlled by a Gulf country.
How many barrels of oil to cover PSG salaries?
The new football season in Europe kicked off on August 5, but official player salary data has only been available for a few weeks, SportingPedia reports in its latest research. Analyzing this data across Europe, Paul Kemp found a sharp rise in the salaries of three of the main European teams owned by the richest Arab sheikhs, affiliated with states that are major players in oil production.
SportingPedia has had fun calculating the number of barrels of oil that each of the three Middle Eastern monarchies must produce to cover the annual salaries of players from PSG, Newcastle and Manchester City. Paul Kemp used a median price of $95 a barrel to establish his ranking.
To ensure the full salaries of PSG players totaling 335,662,616 pounds sterling, the Emir of Qatar and his country must sell 3,910,917 barrels of oil. According to SportingPedia’s calculations, it would therefore take the host country of the 2022 World Cup around 2 days, 23 hours and 1 minute to produce this quantity and cover the highest wages in world football. Because if the country is best known for its gas, Qatar also has oil: in 2021, it produced 73.3 million tonnes of oil, or 1.75 million barrels per day.
The Manchester City locker room is paid 186,160,000 pounds sterling for the 2022/2023 season. Sheikh Mansour and the United Arab Emirates are to produce and sell 2,161,793 barrels of oil. It will take them exactly 16 hours and 45 minutes.
To ensure payment of Newcastle players’ salaries, around £62,610,000 a year, Mohammed bin Salman would need to sell 722,481 barrels of oil. To produce such a quantity, Saudi Arabia is able to do it in just 1 hour and 35 minutes! A record performance!
Sabrina Sadgui – ©2022 BFM Bourse