LYON CLUB PRESIDENT Jean-Michel Aulas has written a letter not of apology, but of near reiteration, after last week retweeting a video of a kangaroo pleasuring itself with the caption: “Nasser [PSG President] & FFP [Fifa Fair Play] to his to his 413,000 followers”
Aulas has been extremely critical of PSG’s business this summer after the Qatari-backed capital club signed Neymar and Kylian Mbappé for a combined fee of €400 million.
The 68-year-old businessman suggested prior to the latter’s arrival that “it could be necessary for the French State to take over,” due to what he perceived as PSG’s unsustainable spending, and Fifa Fair Play’s inability to prevent the Parisians from leaving rivals in their rear-view, damaging Ligue 1 as a competition.
L’Équipe today obtained a letter from Aulas to PSG president Nasser al-Khelaïfi, sent a few days ago as per the French publication, in which Aulas ‘justified’ his summer-long lambasting of PSG – this despite reports that PSG and al-Khelaïfi were satisfied with what they perceived to be an ‘apology.’
Translated to English, the letter reads as follows:
“Dear Nasser,
“As briefly evoked on Thursday night, I wanted to send you this little word to clarify my position and the perception you have of it.
“First of all, I appreciate, without any ambiguity, both the man and the president of the PSG who, with much better means than others, has attained sporting, organisational and management performances that are excellent and welcomed by all French football fans.
“The point on which there is debate is the level of resources used to make PSG not only the premier European club but, in fact, the first French club.
“We are in a competition with 20 clubs where only the first two places, and incidentally the 3rd but very complicated from now on, can have access to very important resources of UEFA.
“Without such resources, clubs such as Lyon, St Etienne, Marseille, Rennes, Nice, Lille and Toulouse are deprived of the possibility of sharing resources that are much higher now than the resources allocated by Ligue 1 to its clubs.
“Some of these clubs, such as Olympique Lyonnais, have invested hundreds of millions of euros in the construction of stadiums and training camps, and the profitability of these investments can only be envisaged with the certainty of being able to participate in competitions in terms of resources.
My analysis, along with a number of other presidents who compete for the Champions League, is in regards to the level of the sheer value of the investments made by the PSG, but also their relative value, given that the average budget of Ligue 1 [clubs], if we do not take PSG into account, is of the order of €60m to €70m! The scale of the means implemented has only grown in recent years, there is now no longer any chance for the second-level clubs to compete on a sporting level with PSG.
“Conversely, I obviously appreciate the arrival of Neymar and all the other great talents that you have attracted to PSG, like Kylian Mbappé in France, who will “dope” the entrances to stadiums and L1 [Ligue 1], hopefully.
“In view of the capitalist and organizational relationship with the beIN Group, I would have liked to have imagined that part of the considerable power of the State of Qatar could immediately participate in the upgrading of French television rights in order to demonstrate that the solidarity with respect to other French clubs, especially in France where the clubs are the most penalised by the undisputed supremacy of PSG.
“In the same way, we could have imagined, but it is probably an inaccessible dream, that some of the big Qatari sponsors can also [invest in other French clubs], like Doha airport with Bayern Munich.
I express all this not to justify my words, because I know that they irritate you, whereas often they are only the fruit of systematic questions posed by the media, and to which I can not unceasingly obscure the answers with regard to my position in the French and European bodies, and as an important shareholder of a club competitor in the championship.
“Finally, know that despite the over-mediaisation of my remarks, I have the utmost respect for the man and I appreciate that PSG can, at a time, win the Champions League, and so with the points accumulated in the UEFA rankings, allow France to eventually catch up with the fourth significant place of more qualified clubs.
“So, I had to tell you all this, because my approach is not negative, far from it. It serves the interests of all clubs participating in a competition for which the economic rules seem to me to be synonymous with sustainability.
“I remain at your disposal to talk about it again and in any case, I will be with you of course to defend the interest of the French clubs, including PSG, in the ECA and the UEFA, [as I] have done so in the past.
“Yours,
Jean-Michel”
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