Qatar's geopolitics in the 'Mbappé case': from Al-Khelaifi to Sheikh Jassim, from Paris to Manchester
«Qatar has tired of PSG. His goal now is Manchester United ». A footballer's agent with contacts in Paris and in the Premier League sums up in one sentence one of the most important factors in the Mbappé case. It is much more than a footballer changing teams. It is another vertex of the geopolitics of sport, of the incipient dominance of the Arab countries over world sport and of the power struggle between the three great economic and sporting protagonists of the Persian Gulf: the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
The Emirates have the current champion of the Champions League, Manchester City, and, among others, the best cycling team in the world (UAE).. The Saudis, who have been the last to appear on the global level, have broken the football table. They bought Newcastle, which they have led to the Champions League, and have reinforced their own league with the signings of Cristiano, Benzema and several players far from retirement, paying for their image as ambassadors of their great goal: the 2030 World Cup.
Doha, for its part, has celebrated the jackpot: the World Cup. He will have the Asian Games in 2030 and wants the Olympics in 2036. Events that, together with Formula 1 and MotoGP Grand Prix or tennis tournaments and even the 2027 Basketball World Cup, make it the nerve center of the sport. But Qatar wants more and feels they are losing the football race against the Emirates and Saudi. There Mbappé and PSG appear.
The Paris team, protagonist of the Qatari conquest since the Arab landing in 2011, has not managed to materialize all the money spent in European titles. Unlike the City sheikhs, European champions once and finalists another, the Frenchmen have only touched glory once, against Bayern in that edition of the pandemic. They have been media heads of continental football, they have accumulated talent, from Ibrahimovic to Messi, Neymar, Ramos or Mbappé himself, but Ligue 1 does not give enough cachet and the Champions League is not only achieved with money. Meanwhile, the Premier has become the best league, the one that generates the most money and, most importantly for Qataris, the one that most people watch. That's what they want, nothing else: visibility and domination.
Al-Khelaifi's change
The Mbappé earthquake has revealed the reality of the Qatar sports project. Al-Khelaifi, who in 2021 admitted that Mbappé “we will never sell him and he will never leave for free”, now distills to his flagship newspapers that they will sell the Frenchman this summer if he does not renew his contract, which ends in June 2024. In the summer of 2022, with the World Cup in Qatar still to be played, in Paris they were not even considering that possibility when the offer of 200 million from Real Madrid arrived.. Now yes.
The key to Qatar is in Manchester today. Sheikh Jassim bin Hamad al-Thani, who is a sheikh, not like the president of PSG, is a few days away from buying Manchester United for 6,000 million euros. Son of the former prime minister of Qatar, he is president of the country's Islamic Bank and will take over 100% of the red devils, turning all of Qatar's attention to the Premier League, which has become a playground for Arabs. Jassim was educated in London, where he lived with his father, and maintains contact with much of the British aristocracy.. They maintain that they have nothing to do with Qatar Sports Investment, the country's sovereign wealth fund, to avoid the control of UEFA, which would not allow two teams of the same property in the Champions League.. Jassim will arrive with another fund, another group, but with the same origin.
A transfer…. But not to Madrid
For all this, in the conversations these days between agents and directors of European football there is a sentence: “Mbappé may want to go to Madrid, but PSG prefers to sell him to any other club”. And in that “any other club” enters Manchester United, the big club in England, also owned by Qatar in the future, local and national rival of City and the Emirates.. A hypothetical move from Mbappé to Manchester would leave a Premier between the Frenchman and Haaland, like those Leagues between Cristiano and Messi. Meanwhile, Qatar dilutes PSG. Messi and Ramos have left, they are looking for a way out for Neymar, they have signed Asensio and they want Kang-In Lee and the Uruguayan from Sporting Lisbon Ugarte, from a lower echelon.
For its part, Madrid, which has managed to win the Premier the race for Bellingham, star of the English team, stands as the great alternative to the English Super League, in a fight that continues to fight under the project of its own European Super League. At the Bernabéu there is a certain tense calm for Mbappé. The player has said that he will not renew in 2024 but that he will continue in Paris for another year, forcing PSG to make a decision. Madrid will put the money he asks for this summer on Al-Khelaifi's table and, if the Frenchmen decide to sell, they will hope that the footballer's desire will win over the Qatari media need. The soap opera will be long.