Before big games at Paris Saint-Germain’s home ground, the crowd of diehard ultras, well-heeled French elites and international celebrities are treated to a pyrotechnic show as a booming voice reminds them: “Ici, c’est Paris”.
Over the past year the French champions have also hosted executives from US investment group Arctos Partners, which has been thrashing out an agreement to buy up to 12.5 per cent of the football club from its Qatari owners.
This month’s deal valued the club at more than €4bn despite the club losing hundreds of millions of euros since the start of the pandemic, playing in a rented stadium with fewer than 50,000 seats and competing in a league that lacks the global appeal of some of its European rivals.