PARIS: So much for financial fair play. In UEFA president Michel Platini’s own French back yard Paris Saint-Germain is to benefit from a further massive cash injection from their Qatari owners writes KEIR RADNEDGE.

Last year, within weeks of being bought out by QSI, PSG spent a domesic record €25m on Argentinian playmaker Javier Pastore. Now the club’s spending budget has been boosted by a further €200m, an increase of 33pc which will take the club to the fringe of Europe’s top 10.

Observers of UEFA’s regulatory plans have always been concerned that a clutch of rich club owners would spend as heavily as possible right up until the very last minute.

It is not for another three years that clubs have to show an approximation of break-even status. How PSG will reach that point is difficult to see on the grounds that the operating losses over the past season were not far short of E100m.

The expenditure of €150m – around 60pc of which was reportedly on wages – equates to the entire operating budget (receipts and expenditure) of Lyon. The provisional assessment of €200m would be 10 times more than that of just-promoted Bastia and five times more than that of  Montpellier who have edged PSG over the last six weeks in the league title  race.

PSG’s strategy is to double income from both sponsorship and matchday receipts. The latter aim would be assisted by plans to expand the Parc des Princes from its present 44,000 capacity to more than 50,000 in time for the French hosting of the European Championship finals in 2016.

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