After three pre-season tours in a row to the United States, French glamour club Paris Saint-Germain turned to Asia in search of new fans and business deals ahead of the new season.
It’s the market “with the biggest growth potential,” according to a PSG official discussing the club’s two-week summer trip to Singapore and China.
PSG’s Asian fan base has grown while its social media presence has exploded along with the French club’s rising profile following the signings of world football’s most expensive player Neymar and French teenage sensation Kylian Mbappe.
Riding the wave of rising popularity, the French club with the Eiffel Tower logo took advantage of the Asian tour to open a permanent office in Singapore.
“With the growth the club has enjoyed in recent years, along with the arrival of our two superstars Neymar and Mbappe, we thought that now was a good time to do it, it was the right moment,” said Sébastien Wasels, the club’s Asia Pacific director.
He said the Qatari-owned club with ambitions to dominate Europe needs the base to handle rising Asian growth opportunities.
And the club that could face sanctions by European football’s governing body UEFA for allegedly violating regulations over spending limits needs to significantly boost its income.
PSG says that it has signed several commercial deals in the region including a multi-million euro partnership with marketing agency Desports for sponsorship and licensing rights in China and Hong Kong.
– Younger generation –
The club has also pinpointed three geographical growth areas in Asia and plans to hire a team of five expert locals to focus on business development opportunities in China, South Korea/Japan, and Southeast Asia/Oceania.
During the club’s brief summer Asia stay that included matches in Singapore and the French Super Cup final against Monaco in Shenzhen, PSG hosted a range of promotional events.
The included a cooking class by the club’s Brazilian defender Marquinhos and a training session for young players at China’s “PSG Academy” by former star player Maxwell, now part of the PSG management team.
PSG’s eSports section was also brought into play to woo the younger generation, hosting a FIFA video tournament for 400,000 participants on local platforms to boost the club’s active gaming sector.
PSG’s social media footprint in Asia is rapidly expanding, says the club.
“When QSI (Qatar Sports Investments, the club’s owners since 2011) took over, we had a million social media followers globally: 90 percent in France.
Paris Saint-German won last year’s French league in a stroll, finishing atop the standings with a 13-point lead over AS Monaco, and clinching the title with five games to spare. PSG boasted the best offence (108 goals) and defence (29 goals conceded). They also featured the league’s top scorer Edinson Cavani (28 goals), Brazil’s Neymar (the world’s most expensive player) and Kylian Mbappe (one of the top young players in the game).
PSG’s roster is just as strong as it was last campaign, and they’ve added legendary goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon. New manager Thomas Tuchel from Borussia Dortmund replaced Spaniard Unai Emery, who took over at Arsenal. PSG gave a small taste of what we might expect from them under Tuchel this season when they trashed AS Monaco 4-0 in last week’s French Super Cup final.
Monaco, Lyon and Marseille all bolstered their squads in the off-season in hopes of knocking PSG off its perch. But there’s no reason to believe they won’t dominate much like they did in 2017-18. The capital club remains far too strong for the remainder of the field, and teams such as Monaco and Lyon, no matter how ambitious they are, simply don’t have the resources to compete with big-money PSG.