Former PSG striker Nicolas Anelka defends Qatari involvement in Ligue 1 | OneFootball

Ligue 1 would suffer greatly without the Qataris, according to former Paris Saint-Germain striker Nicolas Anelka, who believes their involvement has been good for the French top flight.

“If Qatar decides to leave, it would be very bad for the French league, which is already in trouble. It is up to them to ask themselves the question. Why so much stubbornness with Qatar and Nasser Al-Khelafi because that’s not the solution,” the former Euro 2000 champions with France told RMC Sport.

Since the arrival of  QS1 in 2011, PSG have dominated French football, winning 10 Ligue 1 titles, seven Coupe de France trophies, and 11 Trophée des Champions.

While they’ve not won anything on the European stage since Al-Khelaifi’s arrival, Les Parisiens have finished as UEFA Champions League runners-up once (2020) and made the semi-finals on three separate occasions.

They currently find themselves in the quarter-finals of that competition with a match against Aston Villa coming up. Anelka also points out that the club have made a lot of investment lately in a new training centre.

While he acknowledges the kind of power Al-Khelaifi has, for Anelka, it’s normal for others to be concerned about things, but he believes it’s par for the course when your club has the biggest budget in France and you’re the president of that team.

He added that Al-Khelaifi’s power isn’t that different from Jean-Michel Aulas’s tenure at Olympique Lyonnais in the early 2000s and Bernard Tapie’s tenure in the 1980s and 90s at Olympique de Marseille.

Aulas saw Lyon win seven Ligue 1 titles in the 2000s, and by 2008, the club was the 13th most valuable football team according to Forbes, with the magazine valuing them at €383m.

Tapie’s Marseille team was littered with stars and high-end talent winning four French top-flight crowns in the late 1980s and early 90s.

OM also made two Champions League finals and became the only French side to lift the trophy when it was known as the European Cup in 1993.

GFFN | Joel Lefevre