Nasser Al-Khelaifi is a man of many titles. The Qatari businessman is currently the chairman of beIN Media Group, chairman of Qatar Sports Investments, president of Paris Saint-Germain and the Qatar Tennis Federation, and vice president of the Asian Tennis Federation for West Asia. But let’s not stop here, as he is also the European Club Association chairman and an UEFA executive committee member. A man of many functions, but the most recognizable as the PSG chairman, a man desperately seeking to get the Champions League trophy. Literally millions of euros are invested in PSG every season, and average players have so far received millions of euros just to sit on the bench and all UEFA and FIFA rules just seems unreachable when it comes to Al-Khelaifi’s club.Nasser Al-Khelaifi: “Barça? We have to be careful about dangerous levels of debt and about magically injecting capital. This is not a sustainable path to take… We have to think long term.” pic.twitter.com/9ERa0RPZFs— Barça Universal (@BarcaUniversal) September 23, 2022 Many are whispering that his firm support to UEFA’s Aleksander Cheferin during the Super League crisis got him the ‘jail free’ card to turn his club into an endless money pit without any control. But now, of all people, Al-Khelaifi decided to criticize another club for recklessly spending money – Barcelona. The Catalonians are officially out of the financial crisis after selling ‘family silverware’, which basically means that they sold future TV rights and chunks of its digital content arm to investment funds and a crypto firm. And he think that the Catalonians are possibly breaching European football’s financial regulations and setting a dangerous precedent.“Is this fair? No, it’s not fair … Is it legal? I’m not sure. If they allow them, others will do the same. UEFA of course have their own financial regulations. For sure they’re going to look at everything” said PSG president in an interview for Politico. And let’s remember that Khelaifi is also an UEFA executive committee member, which gives more value in his words.La Liga files a complaint to UEFA against PSG and CityBarcelona managed to receive around 700 million euros from this deal and used around 150 million euros on the arrivals of Robert Lewandowski, Raphinha and Jules Kounde. Five other players arrived as free agents and La Liga allowed the Catalonians to register players, as their strict financial rules were fulfilled. But Khelaifi also criticised Barca (indirectly) during a speech to European club bosses last Friday.”The new financial sustainability rules are a positive development. But we need to be careful. Dangerous levels of debt and magical equity deals are not a sustainable path” he said.The end of the tunnel: Barca sells it’s assets to generate cashThis is believed to be only one small battle in an ongoing war between La Liga and PSG, as their president Javier Tebas sent a formal complaint to UEFA against PSG and Manchester City for breaching the financial rules. And that’s not all. The head of the Spanish club football went all the way to the European Union with this complaint, wanting to assure that PSG doesn’t get away. PSG were among eight clubs punished for overspending since 2018 by UEFA earlier this month, but Barcelona were not among them. However, the Catalan club were among 19 other clubs named who met the break-even standard only on technicalities, UEFA said, such as concessions made for the pandemic seasons when many games were played without fans. They have subsequently been added to a watch list. So far Barcelona declined to comment on Khelaifi’s last attack.##NAJAVA_MECA_6677118##
