MUNICH, Germany -- Paris Saint Germain's Champions League win means the club, and the city, are now (even more) officially on the football map. Now what?
Saturday night's 5-0 humiliation of Inter wasn't just PSG's initiation into the big time, but it also opens new horizons for just where this club might go. (They've spent a lot of money over the past decade and while they have some big individual wins, they were seen as somewhat JV until the big silverware was claimed on Saturday night.)
When Qatari Sports Investments (QSI) bought the club in 2011 and chairman Nasser Al-Khelaifi started spending big, conventional wisdom in the football community was that it was some combination of PR/soft power exercise with a view toward burnishing the gulf nation's image ahead of the 2022 World Cup.