The costly consequences - why PSG let so many young stars depart and thrive elsewhere

©Imago/Content stadium

The Champions League returns this week and with it a potential banana skin for Ligue 1 giants Paris Saint-Germain. With high hopes of challenging in this season’s competition, Luis Enrique’s side will have to first get beyond an impressive Real Sociedad team that finished top of Group D, ahead of RB Salzburg, Benfica and Inter Milan. And there’s little doubt that the LaLiga side would love nothing more than to cause further embarrassment for the Parisian side. 

Despite spending €1.83 billion on transfer fees over the course of the last 11 years, PSG have managed to make it to just one Champions League final. And, perhaps even more worryingly, the Ligue 1 giants have failed to get beyond the Last 16 of the competition in five of the last 11 seasons. Should Sociedad knock them out at this stage of the competition in the coming weeks, it will be further proof of the fact that the club’s transfer model of spending big on star players has so far failed to translate into success in European competition. 

However, defeat to Sociedad would perhaps be an even tougher defeat to swallow considering the situation at both clubs. While PSG have opted to spend money to try and win success in the Champions League, their Spanish counterparts have instead chosen to rely on players from their own youth academy. As such, Sociedad can lay claim to 13 players in their squad that were promoted from their own youth academy. In stark contrast, PSG have the second worst record in the competition in this regard, with just three players from their academy. 

PSG’s abysmal record with youth academy players 

“In a way, many french football fans and observers can be frustrated to see "titis" (nickname of PSG academy players) shine for other clubs, while never being given a proper chance in the PSG first team,” notes Ligue 1 expert and French Area Manager for Transfermarkt Ronan Caroff, when asked about PSG’s lack of youth player in the first team. “Of course, the yearly rework of the team, with a lot of money spent, will tend to prioritise senior players over homegrown prospects. It’s very rare to see youth products settle in the 1st team for good.” Of the current squad, only Presnel Kimpembe, Ethan Mbappé and Warren Zaïre-Emery came through the club’s youth ranks before featuring for the first team. “It really needs to be the perfect alignment of the talent and an opportunity in his position,” notes Caroff. “Logically, young players want more playing time and PSG won't deny transfers since they know they aren’t able to give them such opportunities in the near future.”

However, what makes PSG so unique among their counterparts across Europe is that while they don’t have many former youth players in their first team a number of top clubs across the continent can now lay claim to excellent talents that did start their careers in Paris. In fact, when we tally up every former PSG youth academy graduate in Europe and put together a starting XI of the most valuable candidates it produces a team worth an incredible €477 million. And what’s most worrying for the Ligue 1 giants is that they allowed those 11 players to leave the club for a combined transfer fee of just €62m. And that’s without even considering the highly-rated Xavi Simons, who is currently on loan at RB Leipzig and widely expected to depart PSG next season. 

Naturally, due to the club being owned by Qatari government-backed investment fund Qatar Sports Investments, PSG have been able to more or less mitigate this oversight by signing some of the best players in the world each and every season. But, as the club’s record in the Champions League would suggest, signing ready-made stars will only get a club so far. “There’s a potential frustration that might come more from the fact that even after more than 10 years since Qatar bought the club, PSG still don't have a more sustainable long-term model,” adds Caroff. “One that could still welcome big transfers, but also have a bigger contingent of academy players in the first team. We can now count in the dozens the number of “titis” who currently enjoy a decent career without getting a proper chance with PSG.”

Could PSG’s conveyor belt of talent be broken?

Changing the club’s policy of giving more first team game time to youth players may be more appealing to fans of the club and work well in theory. However there are now growing concerns that recent changes to how PSG run their youth teams has led to nosedive in good, young players coming through the academy. In 2019, then sporting director Antero Henrique made the decision to pull PSG’s reserve team from the fourth tier of French football. This meant that youth players at the club no longer had an opportunity to play senior football, unless they were called up directly to the first team. “It now means that when you reach 19 years of age and aren't part of the first team yet, you're almost automatically forced out,” said Caroff when asked about the decision to axe the reserve team. “Previously, these players would get noticed more easily for their performances and get more time to develop, but now it is more of a gamble to see if a U19 player can be solid enough to play senior football.” 

In other words, smaller clubs could use PSG’s reserve team as a yardstick to judge the club’s youth prospects and choose to sign them. Now that the team no longer exists, PSG’s young stars no longer have that ability to showcase their talents in senior French football. As a result, these players have to join lower tier clubs to make their first step in senior football and a quick look at the club’s departures since 2019 would suggest that the talent pool has run dry ever since. To date, only three players have left PSG since the reserve team was dissolved and gone on to earn market values over €10m at other clubs: Stade Rennais forward Arnaud Kalimuendo (€20m), RB Leipzig defender El Chadaille Bitshiabu (€15m) and Burnley winger Wilson Odobert (€15m). Which gives very little indication that the once famed youth academy is still capable of developing players for PSG’s first team.