While the ultimate prize for PSG in continental glory, domestically their budget has enabled them to become an absolute monster that dwarfs everybody else. It's when you see these kind of transfers that PSG are making that you have to acknowledge how amazing a job Leonardo Jardim did with Monaco last season to finish ahead of PSG and nab the Lique 1 title. A special mention must also go to Lucien Favre at Nice, who operated at a much smaller budget even compared to Monaco's let alone PSG's. Favre had managed to keep Nice in the Lique 1 title race last season until around March time when injuries derailed their ambitions.
The title race last season was surprisingly entertaining with the three teams going for it before Monaco outscored everyone with an exciting young squad. However the events of this summer have seen that young exciting squad at Monaco being shredded and there is still enough time in the window for further players to leave. Nice are unlikely to match last season's incredible highs with the added pressure of champions league games to juggle with a thin squad. Lyon have lost their talisman in Alexandre Lacazette and while ordinarily Marseille would be spending big money in French terms it's dwarfed by what is going on in the capital. It all points to a PSG procession to the title.
PSG are just operating in a completely different stratosphere to the rest of the league. The opening day of the season this coming weekend could potentially see one of the biggest mismatches take place, certainly in French circles, and arguably anywhere in Europe. PSG host newly promoted Amiens SC. Amiens SC will be competing in the French top flight for the first time in their history and it was obtained in the most dramatic of circumstances last season. A last minute goal away to Reims ensured Amiens finished third in Lique 2 to ensure promotion in a crazy final day where as many as six teams harboured promotion hopes.
Amiens only two seasons ago were playing in the National (third tier). Their rise to the top division for the first time sees them pitted against the might of PSG in their first game. Amiens haven't spent a dime on players so far this summer. Seven have signed as free transfers, one on loan and one promoted from the B team. They have lost Aboubakar Kamara, scorer of eleven goals in Lique 2 last season to Fulham for £5 million.
According to transfermarkt, the website database on everything transfers the world over, the total market value of Amiens entire squad is £12.28 million, PSG's is £411.95 million, and that is before Neymar pitches up at the Parc de Princes. When he does complete the transfer it will according to the site's market value for Neymar bring PSG up to £496.95 million, astonishingly over forty times the worth of Amiens. Such a gap between two teams playing in the same league is unprecedented even in this era of mind numbing transfer fees.
I feel this warrants a lengthy post in itself but a quick glance at other leagues around Europe show various gaps between the top teams and bottom teams in the respective leagues. Across the channel in England the market value of the highest team is Manchester City with £544 million, the lowest is newly promoted Huddersfield with a total valuation of £43.99 million, some twelve times the difference.
In Spain, Barcelona have the highest valued squad with £664.28 million (including Neymar) with Girona being the lowest at £21.5 million for just over thirty times the difference between the two. Taking Neymar's valuation out sees this reduced to just under twenty-seven times the valuation between the two Catalan based clubs.
The Bundesliga unsurprisingly has Bayern Munich with the highest valued squad at £512.89 million which is just under fifteen times that of Hannover 96's valuation (£34.51m). Italy's Serie A sees Juventus (£437.92m) with twenty one times the valuation of Crotone (£20.44m).
No other league in Europe can match the valuation gap between the top and bottom sides. Even predominantly one team leagues such as Scotland, Greece, Belarus and Croatia have gaps smaller than in France between two teams at opposite ends of the valuation tables. It may come as no shock that the gap between the top teams and the bottom teams in the major leagues at least is quite high but this example in France is a sign of just how absurd the gaps are becoming. Football is increasingly becoming a closed shop at the top end, in fact it has been for years.
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