Qatar-owned PSG set for day of Financial Fair Play reckoning with Neymar future up in the air

Will he stay or will he go? The Neymar decision may be taken out of the club's hands.
Updated 11 June 2018
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Qatar-owned PSG set for day of Financial Fair Play reckoning with Neymar future up in the air

  • UEFA set to reveal if PSG will face sanctions for potential breach of FFP regulations.
  • Fans unhappy at one-horse nature of French domestic football with Qatari cash allowing the capital club to dominate.

LONDON: This week Paris Saint-Germain will find out whether they are to face Financial Fair Play (FFP) sanctions which could see them forced to sell star man Neymar. 
There have been rumors that the Brazilian, bought for a world-record fee of $222 million ($261 million) last summer, wants to leave the club with PSG insisting he is going nowhere. But depending on UEFA’s findings the decision could be taken out of the club’s hands. 
This season the Qatar-backed club won a third domestic treble in four years — their domination of French football is so great that all semblance of competitive balance has been destroyed. 
Yet the lack of homegrown rivals has dulled the luster of PSG’s achievements and continental success remains elusive despite Qatar spending over €1 billion to establish the club as a European power since its 2011 takeover. 
Such a huge outlay has irked the football establishment, this is the second time in four years UEFA have investigated the club over potential breaching of FFP regulations. 
Should PSG be found guilty of again enjoying overvalued sponsorship deals from Qatari state entities, the club could be banned from European competition or face other restrictions that would limit its chances of finally challenging for the Champions League and while PSG officials have reacted angrily to suggestions of impropriety, the fact remains that without Qatari largesse last summer’s signing of Neymar would have been impossible. 
In April, the Financial Times reported that UEFA’s initial investigations revealed that €200 million of sponsorship contracts had been overstated.
“The big question, clearly, is UEFA going to be brave enough to enforce their own rules?” a person close to the investigation told the FT. “If not for PSG, then frankly why bother?” 
In 2014, UEFA censured PSG after deciding that the club’s sponsorship deals were overvalued. Most questionable was a four-year Qatar Tourism Authority (QTA) tie-up reportedly worth €700 million. This was signed in 2013 and backdated to 2012 — a feat seemingly impossible without recourse to a time machine. 
QTA renewed its €175 million-a-year sponsorship deal with PSG in 2016, Le Parisien reported. Curiously, QTA is not listed on the club’s sponsors page of its website, although the authority’s website makes plain the importance of its association with the French champions. PSG’s top sponsors are listed as kit supplier Nike, shirt sponsor Emirates airline, plus Qatar National Bank and Qatari telecom operator Ooredoo. 
When UEFA announced the current investigation in September 2017, PSG said they could sell players if required to meet FFP rules and predicted its revenues would rise 20-40 percent following the arrival of Neymar and French starlet Kylian Mbappe, currently on loan from Monaco pending a €180 million permanent transfer this summer. 
PSG’s last-16 exit in the Champions League — a resounding 5-2 aggregate defeat to Real Madrid — has made achieving such a big revenue jump markedly harder; PSG and Atletico Madrid were the only clubs from Europe’s 10 biggest by revenue to earn more broadcast income from the Champions League in 2015-16 than domestic competition, underlining the importance of continental progress to the habitual French champions.
So, will PSG be found to have breached FFP?
“It may depend on how contracts with QTA are going to be taken into account,” said Jean-Pascal Gayant, Professor of Economics at Le Mans University. 
If the club has to raise around €45 million from player sales, as some French media have speculated, this should be straightforward. 
“If €200 million is needed, it will be tougher — if so, I’m not sure Neymar will stay long,” said Gayant.
According to FFP regulations, clubs can spend €5 million more than they earn per season. If excess spending is covered by direct payments by owners or other parties, clubs’ outgoings can exceed income by €30 million in total over a rolling three-year period. 
Investments in stadiums, training facilities, youth development and women’s football are excluded from UEFA’s calculations, while clubs can spread a player’s transfer fee over the duration of his contract. UEFA had been expected to announce its final decision after PSG’s financial year ends on June 30, but French media suggest the governing body could go public with its findings as early as this week.

DOMESTIC BLISS? 
PSG have won 11 of the past 12 domestic trophies, with only Monaco’s unlikely league triumph last season denying them a clean sweep. Those trophies are impressive, but the club’s Qatari owners made plain European success was their target. 
“We have a very clear vision,” PSG’s Qatari president Nasser Al-Khelaifi told the Financial Times in March 2014. “In five years, we want to be one of the best clubs in Europe and to win the Champions League.” 
Yet PSG have failed to match their own European exploits of the mid-1990s when the Parisiens reached five consecutive European semifinals, winning the Cup Winners’ Cup in 1996. From 1993-94 to 1997-98, PSG were Europe’s top-ranked team. Under Qatari ownership PSG have been never been past the Champions League quarterfinals and exited at the last-16 stage for the past two seasons. 
“We had a similar experience to what we have now but back then it was achieved in a fairer way,” said Pierre Barthelemy, 32, a Parisien lawyer, life-long PSG fan and an elected member of the Board of the French National Fans Association (ANS) and of Football Supporters Europe (FSE). 
“From 2011, we’ve been successful because someone put a lot of money into the club but still haven’t matched the level of the team back then. That was legitimate, but from 2011 it’s not been so legitimate. In the 1990s, it was the result of building a project for many years, whereas this decade it came from nowhere.”
The lack of a nearby challenger means many fans are less committed, in contrast to the passionate rivalry between the likes of Atletico Madrid and Real Madrid fans, for example, while migration from France’s provinces has diluted Parisiens’ sense of identity. 
“There’s nothing in the city that refers to the club. Paris is not a city with its own culture, most residents identify more with the culture of where they are from,” added Barthelemy.
“Qatar’s ownership hasn’t made any difference to the profile of PSG within Paris, apart from among young kids who will now support the club. Paris isn’t a city committed to sport or its own culture.
“The league is boring. After 10-15 games we know we’ll win it, but in the cup you can be eliminated in every game and no other club in Europe has gone so long unbeaten in cup competitions.
“We could lose five games and still be league champions. As a fan, it’s easier to get excited about the cups.”
Le Mans University’s Gayant said it was tough to decide whether Qatar’s huge investment in PSG had been positive for French football.
“On one hand, there is again a French team in the top 10 in Europe,” said Gayant. “On the other, the gap between PSG and others French teams is so huge that the only interesting thing is who will be second and third? 
“PSG is the most hated team in France and also the most popular. French fans are schizophrenic — they’re both bored and enthusiastic.”
PSG responded to Monaco’s brief ascendancy by signing Mbappe, their rival’s most coveted player. If that deal is made permanent, PSG will have spent €402 million on him and Neymar, the two most expensive signings in history. 
Both were opportunistic signings borne out of circumstance, rather than the culmination of a long-term transfer policy as the club opted to recruit two expensive forwards instead of addressing the team’s glaring weaknesses in goal, defensive midfield and left-back. 
The result? Another early European exit, although Neymar’s transfer was in part a political response to the blockade of Qatar by former allies Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt and the UAE, which accuse Doha of supporting terrorism. 
Overall, PSG have been profligate, spending €935 million in the seven seasons since the Qataris took over, recouping €219 million in player sales over the same period for an overall net spend of €716 million, or €102 million per season, according to transfermarkt.com. Those figures do not include Mbappe’s fee. 
Clubs in France’s top two divisions collectively made a profit of €3 million in 2015-16 — the most recently publicly available figures — ending seven straight years of losses thanks to a €429 million profit in the transfer market. 
France’s success in nurturing young football talent should be applauded, but effectively all teams except PSG are selling clubs, unable to hold onto their best players, strengthening Parisien dominance. 
Monaco, who reached the Champions League semifinals in 2017, sold €358 million of players last summer, for example, eviscerating the principality’s young squad and ending their chances of defending the French title before a ball had been kicked. 
“It was a miracle Monaco won the French championship in 2017,” said Gayant. “Fortuitously, Monaco had 6-7 young top class players — Mbappé, Bernardo Silva, Tiémoué Bakayoko, Benjamin Mendy, Thomas Lemar, Fabinho — but such a set of circumstances will probably not happen again in the next 50 years.”
PSG are the only French club to make the top 20 in Deloitte’s 2016-17 European soccer Money League, falling to seventh, their lowest ranking since 2011-12. 
PSG rank sixth for commercial revenue but only 18th in broadcast revenue, with French football having little catchment beyond its borders. Lyon, in 21st, are France’s only other representative in the top 30, underlining PSG’s destruction of any domestic competitive balance. 
“With the lowest value domestic broadcast deal of any of the ‘big five’, France is unlikely to have more than two clubs in the top 30 for the foreseeable future,” Deloitte wrote.


Caitlin Clark and Napheesa Collier chosen as captains of WNBA All-Star Game by fan vote

Updated 18 sec ago
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Caitlin Clark and Napheesa Collier chosen as captains of WNBA All-Star Game by fan vote

  • Clark received 1,293,526 votes from fans, while Collier had about 100,000 fewer
  • Collier leads the league in scoring at a career-best 24.5 points and is fourth in rebounding at 8.4 per game

 

 

NEW YORK: Caitlin Clark and Napheesa Collier will captain the WNBA All-Star Game next month, the league announced Sunday.
Clark received 1,293,526 votes from fans, while Collier had about 100,000 fewer.
“It’s cool that fans get to be a part of it and have a little impact on the game,” Clark said. “It’s going to be special to do it here in this city. ... Trying to make it the best All-Star that the WNBA has ever had. It’s certainly a cool honor.”
The Indiana Fever star, who is sidelined with a groin strain, is averaging 18.2 points and a career-high 8.9 assists. She also led the fan voting last season, her rookie year, but the All-Star format was the US Olympic team playing against a select group of WNBA stars so no captains were chosen. She learned she was captain in a phone call from WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert.
Collier leads the league in scoring at a career-best 24.5 points and is fourth in rebounding at 8.4 per game. Her daughter surprised her wearing a shirt saying “Mama you’re a All-Star,” as she scooted into the locker room with former Lynx great Sylvia Fowles right behind her to let Collier know the news.
“It’s really cool,” Collier said to reporters before warming up for a game Sunday night “I went from never being a starter to captain.”
This will be her fifth All-Star appearance.
Before squaring off in Indianapolis on July 19, Clark and the Fever will face Collier and the Lynx on Tuesday in the Commissioner’s Cup final.
The 10 starters were selected from across the WNBA without regard to conference affiliation. Current players and a media panel joined fans in selecting the All-Star starters. Fans voting accounted for 50 percent, while the players vote and the media choices each account for 25 percent.
The pair will draft their fellow starters from a group that will be revealed on Monday. After the starters are announced, the league’s head coaches will choose the 13 reserves by voting for three guards, five frontcourt players and four from either position. Coaches can’t vote for players from their own teams. The 12 reserves will be revealed next Sunday.
“Obviously I’m going to try and get my teammates on my team, that’s the goal,” Clark said. “Once they come out with whoever has made it and whoever hasn’t, I’ll get to pick and choose. I don’t know how it works.”
The two All-Star captains will then draft their respective rosters by selecting first from the remaining eight players in the pool of starters and then from the pool of 12 reserves.
Clark and Collier also led the initial fan voting, with Indiana’s Aliyah Boston in third. Boston finished second last season behind Clark in the fan vote.


Hall of Fame horse trainer D. Wayne Lukas, a winner of 15 Triple Crown races, dies at 89

Updated 27 min 12 sec ago
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Hall of Fame horse trainer D. Wayne Lukas, a winner of 15 Triple Crown races, dies at 89

  • His family said Sunday that Lukas died Saturday night at his Louisville, Kentucky, home
  • Lukas won 15 Triple Crown races, including the Kentucky Derby four times. Only good friend Bob Baffert has more Triple Crown victories, and Lukas owns a record-tying 20 in the Breeders’ Cup World Championships

NEW YORK: D. Wayne Lukas, the Hall of Famer who became one of the most accomplished trainers in the history of horse racing and a face of the sport for decades, has died. He was 89.

His family said Sunday that Lukas died Saturday night at his Louisville, Kentucky, home. Lukas had been hospitalized with a severe MRSA blood infection that caused significant damage to his heart and digestive system and worsened pre-existing chronic conditions.

“Wayne devoted his life not only to horses but to the industry — developing generations of horsemen and horsewomen and growing the game by inviting unsuspecting fans into the winner’s circle,” his family said in a statement. “Whether he was boasting about a maiden 2-year-old as the next Kentucky Derby winner or offering quiet words of advice before a big race, Wayne brought heart, grace, and grit to every corner of the sport. His final days were spent at home in Kentucky, where he chose peace, family, and faith.”

Lukas won 15 Triple Crown races, including the Kentucky Derby four times. Only good friend Bob Baffert has more Triple Crown victories, and Lukas owns a record-tying 20 in the Breeders’ Cup World Championships.

“The whole secret of this game, I think, is being able to read the horse: Read what he needs, what he doesn’t need, what he can’t do, what he can do,” Lukas said in May before his 34th and final Preakness Stakes. “That’s the whole key. Everybody’s got the blacksmith, everybody’s got to the same bed available, the feed man. We all can hire a good jockey. We all can hire a pretty good exercise rider if we’ve got the means, so what the hell is the difference? The horse is the difference and what we do with him in reading him.”

Lukas was affectionately known around the barns and the racetrack as “Coach” because he coached high school basketball before his professional career with horses began. Even with months to go before his 90th birthday, he would get up on his pony in the early morning hours and go out to the track himself, rather than letting his assistants do the day-to-day work.

Born Darnell Wayne Lukas on Sept. 2, 1935, in Wisconsin as the second of three children, he rose to prominence in the sport with quarter horses in races that are effectively sprints. He moved into thoroughbreds in the late 1970s and won his first Preakness with Codex in 1980.

Lukas has 4,967 documented victories in thoroughbred racing, with his horses earning more than $310 million from more than 30,600 starts.

“Today we lost one of the great champions of Churchill Downs and one of the most significant figures in Thoroughbred racing over the last 50 years,” Churchill Downs Inc. CEO Bill Carstanjen said. “We will miss his humor, his wisdom and his unmatched capacity to thrill the fans with the performances of his horses on our sport’s biggest days.”

Achieving something of a career renaissance over the past decade, one he credits to finding the right owners willing to spend money on horses, Lukas won the Preakness last year with Seize the Grey. Asked what motivates him to keep doing his job well into his late 80s, he gave a pep talk fit for a locker room before a big game.

“If you have a passion, you eliminate all the excuses,” Lukas said. “That’s how it works. You get up early. You go without a meal. You drive. You go without sleep — as long as you got the passion. Don’t let that sofa pull you down. It’s a little easy when that alarm goes off to say, ‘Oh my God, I don’t know if I really want to do this today.’ Erase that. The most important decision you’ll ever make in your life is your attitude decision. Make it early, and make the right one.”


Aldrich Potgieter, 20, wins Rocket Classic in five-hole playoff

Updated 31 min 18 sec ago
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Aldrich Potgieter, 20, wins Rocket Classic in five-hole playoff

  • Potgieter drained an 18-foot birdie putt on the fifth playoff hole to secure his first PGA Tour victory by winning the Rocket Classic at Detroit Golf Club
  • The trio of Potgieter, Greyserman and Kirk finished 72 holes at 22-under-par 266

DETROIT: As a grueling playoff unfolded in the Rocket Classic, South Africa’s Aldrich Potgieter was determined to have enough pace on what became the final putt Sunday.

Potgieter drained an 18-foot birdie putt on the fifth playoff hole to secure his first PGA Tour victory by winning the Rocket Classic at Detroit Golf Club.

“Struggled to make putts. Left a lot short,” Potgieter said. “Finally got one to the hole.”

Potgieter outlasted Max Greyserman in an extended playoff that began with three golfers. Chris Kirk’s bogey on the second playoff hole cost him a chance and reduced the playoff to two golfers.

Potgieter, a big-hitting 20-year-old, began the tournament with a 62 on Thursday and ended up with the biggest prize. He is the youngest South African to win on tour.

“Big thanks to my family, friends, coaches, everyone who has been involved to kind of get me to this point,” Potgieter said.

The trio of Potgieter, Greyserman and Kirk finished 72 holes at 22-under-par 266.

“This one is going to sting a little bit,” Greyserman said.

Potgieter, who became the seventh-youngest PGA Tour winner since 1983, and Greyserman both had birdies on the par-5 14th hole — the fourth stop in the playoff — before Potgieter sank the winning putt on the par-3 15th hole.

Kirk and Greyserman shot final-round 5-under-par 67s and Potgieter, who was the first- and third-round leader, had 69.

Kirk had the best chance on the first playoff hole, but he was off the mark on a birdie putt of slightly more than 9 feet.

“It’s a shame that first playoff hole,” Kirk said. “Hit just three perfect shots and I misread that putt a little bit. That’s the way it goes sometimes.”

Greyserman missed from 11 feet on the second extra hole before Kirk was eliminated with a three-putt bogey moments later.

“Just really disappointed right now,” Kirk said. “Felt like I played great today. I’m happy with the way I played.”

Greyserman, ranked 48th in the world entering this week, remains without a PGA Tour victory. He has four runner-up finishes.

“Unfortunately, I didn’t get the job done,” Greyserman said. “Thought I hit a lot of good shots down the stretch. Very pleased with how I handled myself down the stretch.”

It was a bogey-free round for Greyserman, who missed a birdie putt from just inside 12 feet on the final hole that would have given him the victory. He made birdies on Nos. 16 and 17 to rise into a share of the lead.

Except for a birdie on No. 17, Kirk posted par on seven of his last eight holes in regulation.

It was a crowded leaderboard for the entire day.

Michael Thorbjornsen (67) and Jake Knapp (68) shared fourth place at 21 under. Jackson Suber (68) and Colombia’s Nico Echavarria (66) tied for sixth at 20 under.

By late afternoon, there were 26 golfers within three shots of the lead. After Potgieter and Greyserman made the turn as the final pairing, there were several fewer so close to the top, but still more than a dozen — with more than half of those golfers still on the course.

Echavarria played the final seven holes in 4 under to match his first-round 66.

Harry Higgs and Akshay Bhatia had 65s for the best scores of the last round, finishing at 16 under and 15 under, respectively.


New faces lead US women to familiar result: 4-0 win over Ireland

Updated 30 June 2025
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New faces lead US women to familiar result: 4-0 win over Ireland

  • It was such a young lineup that Biyendolo had almost twice as many appearances (81) as the rest of the starting lineup (41), which represented the fewest combined matches of any USWNT lineup in the past 24 years
  • The US will get a much sterner test on Wednesday when they play Canada in Washington, D.C., to complete the three-match window

CINCINNATI: The US women’s national team’s depth was on display Sunday in Cincinnati when the squad’s backups dominated Ireland for a 4-0 victory in a friendly.

US coach Emma Hayes made 11 changes from the lineup that defeated Ireland 4-0 on Thursday and didn’t miss a beat as the Americans won their fourth straight match without allowing a goal. In fact, Ireland did not put a shot on frame.

Izzy Rodriguez, who made her USWNT debut along with Sam Meza, scored in the 42nd minute for a 2-0 lead while Emma Sears played a part in the first three goals. Sears and Rodriguez played together at Ohio State, less than two hours away.

Sandwiching the Rodriguez goal, Lynn Biyendolo opened the scoring in the 11th minute and Yazmeen Ryan extended the lead to 3-0 in the 66th with her first goal. Alyssa Thompson made it 4-0 in the 86th on an assist by Claire Hutton.

The win was the 600th in USWNT history in just 765 matches.

It was such a young lineup that Biyendolo had almost twice as many appearances (81) as the rest of the starting lineup (41), which represented the fewest combined matches of any USWNT lineup in the past 24 years.

It didn’t matter. Sears made a cross to Biyendolo in the middle of the box and she ripped a shot for her 25th goal.

Rodriguez got on the board when Sears took an entry pass from Olivia Moultrie and forced a save by Courtney Brosnan (six saves). The ball came to Rodriguez and she did not hesitate on the rebound.

The role was reversed on the third goal. Sears fed Moultrie and she found an unmarked Ryan.

A minute after Thompson’s goal, hometown favorite Rose Lavelle entered the match to a standing ovation and nearly scored in the ensuing minute.

The US will get a much sterner test on Wednesday when they play Canada in Washington, D.C., to complete the three-match window.


Reed wins four-man playoff to capture first LIV Golf title

Updated 30 June 2025
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Reed wins four-man playoff to capture first LIV Golf title

  • “The biggest thing with relief is to finally win in my home state,” said Reed, who lives near Houston

WASHINGTON: Patrick Reed birdied the first extra hole to win a four-man playoff on Sunday and capture LIV Golf Dallas for his first victory in 41 starts in the Saudi-backed series.
Reed, the 2018 Masters champion, led by as many as five strokes early in the final round, squandered his advantage, then won on only the third birdie of the day at the 18th hole at Maridoe Golf Club.
“The biggest thing with relief is to finally win in my home state,” said Reed, who lives near Houston. “To finally get that done meant a lot. To get my first win here as part of LIV means so much to me.”
The 34-year-old American won last November’s Hong Kong Open on the Asian Tour for his first title since a 2021 PGA victory at Torrey Pines.
Reed, England’s Paul Casey, South African Louis Oosthuizen and Japan’s Jinichiro Kozuma shared the lead after the regulation 54 holes on six-under 282.
Reed opened with a birdie at the first hole, jumped ahead by five after double bogeys by his top rivals, but had five bogeys on the front nine before parring his way through the back nine proved good enough to make a playoff.
“I tried to mess it up,” Reed said. “After making birdie on the first I seemed to leave every putt short. Just kind of putting pretty tentative.”
He missed a birdie putt at 18 in regulation to ensure a playoff.
“Had a good putt there to win on the final hole of regulation, hit a good putt and it doesn’t go in there. Leave it short,” Reed said. “So when I had that down there (to win in the playoff) I thought I left it short too but making a birdie at the last always helps.”
Reed composed himself at the turn after losing the lead to his woeful front side.
“I told myself the putts have to start falling. For the most part I thought I hit the ball fine. I had just a lot of missed putts,” he said.
Kozuma missed a chance for his first victory outside his homeland.
Sharing fifth on 283 were Americans Charles Howell and Harold Varner, England’s Tyrrell Hatton and Northern Ireland’s Tom McKibbin.
Spain’s Sergio Garcia qualified for the British Open, taking the spot available to a top-five LIV season player not already in the field for next month’s major showdown at Portrush.
The Crushers, featuring Casey and two-time US Open winner Bryson DeChambeau, won the team title.