Paris Saint Germain SWOT Analysis
Paris Saint-Germain Football club has been remarkably a successful club despite its short lifespan. It started at 1970 when a group of businessmen went through with the plan of merging Paris FC and Stade Saint-Germain in to a single Club under the name of ‘Paris Saint-Germain’ (PSG). Shortly, after achieving a promotion to Ligue 1 , the club moved to the legendary parc des princes to become their home stadium. However, PSG witnessed few perturbations to register a a period of decline due to club mismanagement and cracking under pressure in the title races. Even though the club had some Cup success during the 00s this period is mostly remembered for numerous crisis situations and problems with hooliganism. Additionally, the prominent interval where the club has witnessed a prosperity and designed his goals for an international success is when the club was bought by Qatar Sports Investments in 2011. The financial capability of the club has been upgraded to make important transfers led by the Swedish star Zlatan Ibrahimović. Then the parisien club returned to the spotlight by winning three consecutive ligue 1 titles and shifted the focus into winning the champions league and making an own history (FootballHistroy, 2020).
Those were a few general background information about the club, the following paragraphs will show a brief SWOT analysis about it.
Strengths:
Unlimited and huge investment form Qataris: The club is able to set massive transfers in the market and confident to sign world class players. a great example is Neymar Jr where his transfer from Barcelona to PSG stands as the most expensive in the world at $263 million, which the French club paid in full ahead of his signing.
Good performance: The club is clearly dominating their respective league, its attractive playing style with continuous and solide performances result an excellent stature for the club.
Well known brands all over the world: The club has a deal with Nike for example which described as the ‘biggest sponsorship agreement’ in their history, reflecting the ambitions of the team and their position internationally. Besides that, the list of global partners is long with Ooredoo, Qatar Airways and EA Sports on top.
Successful Merchandising strategies: Paris St. Germain’s Qatari owners dreamed of a world where supporters could travel with PSG luggage, while snacking on PSG chips, wearing a PSG Levi’s jacket with PSG Beats by Dre on their ears and the merchandising department “made it happen,”where since the arrival of Qatar Sports Investments in 2011, and the takeover of merchandising “previously managed by Nike,” revenue in this area went up from €11.5M in ’2011 to €42M in 2016.
Weaknesses:
PSG is regarded as a recent club: The club with its new investors and their strategies is on the track to reach the missing historical achievements.
The club never won a big European cup: This is deemed as a major drawbacks for the club, despite their remarkable performances and the consecutive titles wins, PSG still lacking the European glory while they have the potentials such as players and coaches to make it.
The New management strategy: It is a still growing project started in 2011 by by injecting tremendous sums of money and the club and its fans are waiting for the planned results.
Opportunities:
Reach new markets in USA, India or China : this potentially might help in expanding the fan-base through gain new supporters thanks to visit and arranging preseason games in these countries. It might help as well to boost revenues from the merchandising plan.
Agreements with high reputation sponsors and partners: Through this process the club will be able to become more visible and earn a better reputation.
Better Football: Playing football on a high level by showing intensity and passion for the game will definitely help the club to develop , Barcelona Tiki-Taka football is a good example to illustrate how the performance heavily matters
Corporate Social Responsibility Policies: The managerial board must be aware of the impact of the club on society and exploit it to be an influencer for achieving social well being for the community such us tackling racism or the expedient treatment for the employees.
Threats:
Strong competition with other European clubs: competing with the best teams in Europe will make the pursuit for the titles very intractable. clubs like Real Madrid, Barcelona, Manchester United or Bayern Munchen are eager contenders to win.
“Financial Fair Play”: Those regulations prevent the club from spending greater sums of money for signing players. Penalties and fines when the rule is transgressed are extremely prejudicial, they might reach to ban from competing and paying huge money.
References:
FootballHistroy, 2020. Paris Saint-Germain FC (PSG) History. [online] Footballhistory.org. Available at: <https://www.footballhistory.org/club/psg.html > [Accessed 6 April 2020].