Former a player at Paris-Saint-Germain, it’s money, a lot of money. Between the facilities and the human resources made available. Yohan Cabaye is the director of the training center.
Multiply this amount by the number of years spent in the center, on average five years, 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 homegrown players. 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. This is changing because wearing the Parisian jersey explodes the valuation of young players and is also the prospect of enormous profit for the club in case of sale. An example: if tomorrow a club wants to buy midfielder Warren Zaïre-Emery, a pure product of the Parisian training, who now plays for the French national team – this player who cost about 450,000 euros in training – the buying club will have to spend between 90 and 100 million euros. We understand why training has become a crucial issue for clubs and for PSG.
