Football News

Paris Saint-Germain are hoping their latest Ligue 1 title, secured on Sunday with three games to spare, will be just the first leg of a historic treble with a Champions League semifinal to come and the French Cup final to look forward to as well.

It is PSG's 12th French title, at least two more than any other team, and it is also their 10th in 12 seasons, which goes to show how the footballing landscape in the country has been transformed since the Qatari takeover of the club in 2011.

The extent of PSG's financial advantage over the rest of French football is crushing and means ending each season as champions is effectively a minimum requirement.

When analysts Deloitte published their list of the top-earning football clubs in the world for last year, PSG were third with revenue of just over 800 million euros ($855m). The only other French team in the top 20 was Marseille, with 258 million euros.

Uefa's own European Club Finance report, published in February, revealed PSG as having the second-highest wage bill on the continent behind only Barcelona, at over 600 million euros.

Those wage costs will have changed significantly this season, following the departures of Lionel Messi and Neymar, but a recent study by sports daily L'Equipe claimed that the 10 highest-paid players in Ligue 1 just now all play in Paris.

In that context, it is almost impossible for anyone to compete with Luis Enrique's team domestically, but the Spanish coach still deserves credit.

"Given our history and our squad, we are the favourites, although not everybody manages to do it, especially with so many games still to play," he said last week.

"But I have said since the very first day that we are the favourites, that we have the best squad and the biggest

Lionel Messi Luis Enrique