Former a player at Paris-Saint-Germain, it’s money, a lot of money. Between the infrastructure or the human resources made available. Yohan Cabaye is the head of the training center. Multiply this amount by the number of years spent at the center, five years on average, and you get 450,000 euros per player. There are on average about fifteen players per promotion. In total per year, training costs the club around 7 to 8 million euros per year. And in general, training is a way for clubs to make money. Loïc Ravenel is an economist at CIES, the International Center for Sports Studies. The PSG training center is one of the most profitable in Europe.
Over the past ten years, the capital club has pocketed more than 300 million euros in transfer fees thanks to its players trained at the club. The undisputed champion is in Portugal, Benfica Lisbon, with 588 million euros in the club’s coffers thanks to its training. Historically, PSG trains well but retains few of its players. It is changing because wearing the Parisian shirt boosts the value of young players and also offers the prospect of a huge profit for the club in case of a sale. An example: if tomorrow a club wants to buy midfielder Warren Zaïre-Emery, a pure product of the Parisian training, now playing for the French national team – this player who cost around 450,000 euros in training – the buying club will have to shell out between 90 and 100 million euros. We understand why training has become a key issue for clubs and for PSG.
