Neymar, 25, is among the world’s finest players and will help the ambitious Ligue 1 club gain the success it craves in Europe. But the eye-popping fee left many experts divided over whether it was good business or a risky financial gamble.
“I don’t think it’s expensive, I’m convinced we are going to earn more money with him. It’s a project of two brands: we’re associating the Neymar brand and the PSG brand,” al-Khelaifi said.
And the incredible commercial potential of the former Barcelona star was visible after his first day at the club, with a rush on PSG shops on the Champs-Elysees and Parc des Princes to purchase his coveted number 10 jersey.
The French club had already clawed back around a million euros on their world-record investment in just one day thanks to selling a staggering 10,000 shirts bearing the Brazilian’s name, costing 140 euros each.
The club are also expected to sell a further 15,000 Neymar shirts yesterday, when he was presented to the fans at the Parc des Princes ahead of their Ligue 1 opener against Amiens.
The merging of the brands appears to have commercial potential too.
PSG deputy managing director Frederic Longuepee said that the club was valued at 1bn euros and has “200mn fans around the world”.
As for the Neymar brand, the player has 30mn Twitter followers, 60mn on Facebook and a whopping 78mn on Instagram – second only to Real Madrid superstar Cristiano Ronaldo.
“With Neymar, PSG will sell a great deal of shirts and have all kinds of commercial partnerships in France and around the world, but it is difficult to measure how much,” Jean-Pascal Gayant, Professor of Economics at the University of Le Mans, said.
Gayant believes that while the transfer fee may look “risky”, the club would swiftly renegotiate its existing commercial and sponsorship contracts to benefit from the Neymar effect.
“There are not two Neymars in the world. I would love for us to meet in two years and see what his value will be compared to today. At least double,” said al-Khelaifi.
Pundits in England suggest part of the transfer fee gold rush is fuelled by a belief prices will indeed rise sharply, but not everyone agrees.
“Not much surprises me anymore, but 400mn (euros) would do the trick. In sporting terms, physically he is at his peak value now, in our way of calculating a player’s value. The optimum is around 26 or 27 years old (he’s 25),” said Loic Ravenel, a researcher with the Football Observatory.