For Brest’s opening home game of the Ligue 1 season, some spectators paid a mere €4 for a seat. It was a special occasion, the first league match at the Stade Francis-Le-Blé without restrictions on numbers since the beginning of the Covid-19 crisis. It was also a derby, the all-Brittany clash with Rennes.
The crowd was close to its 15,000 capacity for the 1-1 draw. On Friday, for the visit of Paris Saint-Germain, the stadium is sold out without any special-offer €4 seats. Ever since the possibility was raised that Lionel Messi might just be in the visitor’s matchday squad, the resale value of tickets has soared into the hundreds of euros. They would have gone up still higher had the expectation of an imminent Messi debut for PSG not been dampened.
Mauricio Pochettino, the PSG head coach, on Thursday made it clear that he thinks Messi needs further training before he is ready for a first start in French football. But that serves merely to heighten the suspense that is part of the Messimania phenomenon, a hype cultivated by his new club, eager to leverage the global interest in PSG since Messi’s surprise move from Barcelona.
Wherever he sees his first action, Messi’s will soon recognise David versus Goliath scenarios as routine. PSG’s trips to low-key provincial arenas, like Brest’s, remind that many clubs in the top division in France live on annual budgets that would barely cover the basic salary of Messi.
If, say, Brest spent all their money for the entire season on Messi at the rate, over €1m a week he is paid by PSG, they could manage to keep him there for about two-thirds of it. Stade de Reims, where Pochettino takes his team next weekend, could just about maintain Messi for a season on their €60m budget — but they would have almost nothing left to pay anybody else.
Ever since PSG came under Qatari ownership 10 years ago, French football has had to come to terms with a vast imbalance, a huge gap between the super-rich club in the capital and everybody else.
Olympique Marseille, OM, the only French club to have won a Champions League, used to regard themselves as top of the pile in terms of support-base. Olympique Lyonnais, OL, are a 21st century success story in terms of growth and development. But PSG’s resources dwarf OM’s and OL’s.
Yet last season Lille became the champions on a budget of less than a quarter of PSG’s, a triumph that encourages all the clubs from less fashionable cities. “I know everyone in French football wants to beat PSG,” said Messi when he arrived in France.
He has already seen how that works: Lille defeated the aristocrats from the capital in the Trophee des Champions — the French Super Cup equivalent — earlier this month. Newly promoted Troyes took the lead against PSG in the opening game of the Ligue 1 season, before Achraf Hakimi and Maurcio Icardi restored hierarchy with a 2-1 win. Even last weekend, after the formal unveiling of Messi, and fellow new arrivals Sergio Ramos, Gigio Donnarumma, Hakimi and Gini Wijnaldum at Paris’s Parc des Princes, Strasbourg threatened an upset when they clawed back a 3-0 deficit to 3-2. PSG ended up 4-2 winners, but there had been some nervous moments.
How many more close shaves PSG experience once Messi, Neymar, Kylian Mbappe, Marco Verratti, Wijnaldum, Hakimi, Ramos, Marquinhos are lining up in front of goalkeeper Donnarumma remains to be seen. Of those, only Hakimi, Wijnaldum and Mbappe have been available for the wins over Troyes and Strasbourg, with Pochettino easing the others back to fitness after busy summers, and, in the case of Ramos, awaiting his recovery from injury.
“We have to analyse the physical state of these players to see when they will be ready,” said Pochettino. Several have only recently joined pre-season practice. Five of his squad were involved in the mid-July Copa America final between Argentina and Brazil and the two Italians, Verratti and Donnarumma, in the Euro 2020 final.
Pochettino will be pleased when the end of August arrives, not only because he will have a fuller pick of fit players, but because the transfer window will be closing. Speculation about Mbappe’s future, with the player into the last year of his contract and Real Madrid openly interested in Mbappe, is making almost as much noise around the club as is Messimania.
“I look at this period of the year with a sense of humour,” said Pochettino. “A lot of things get said, and experience tells you some may happen and others will not. Kylian is calm, the club knows he is our player and that he is preparing for our next game.”
Good news for those Brest locals who paid over-the-odds for tickets: they should at least see Mbappe, the superstar of France, even if the Messi express is not yet ready to leave the station.
Cinco in numbers
Dh3.7 million
The estimated cost of Victoria Swarovski’s gem-encrusted Michael Cinco wedding gown
46
The number, in kilograms, that Swarovski’s wedding gown weighed.
1,000
The hours it took to create Cinco’s vermillion petal gown, as seen in his atelier [note, is the one he’s playing with in the corner of a room]
50
How many looks Cinco has created in a new collection to celebrate Ballet Philippines’ 50th birthday
3,000
The hours needed to create the butterfly gown worn by Aishwarya Rai to the 2018 Cannes Film Festival.
1.1 million
The number of followers that Michael Cinco’s Instagram account has garnered.
The Voice of Hind Rajab
Starring: Saja Kilani, Clara Khoury, Motaz Malhees
Director: Kaouther Ben Hania
Rating: 4/5
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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
Essentials
The flights
Emirates flies direct from Dubai to Seattle from Dh6,755 return in economy and Dh24,775 in business class.
The cruise
UnCruise Adventures offers a variety of small-ship cruises in Alaska and around the world. A 14-day Alaska’s Inside Passage and San Juans Cruise from Seattle to Juneau or reverse costs from $4,695 (Dh17,246), including accommodation, food and most activities. Trips in 2019 start in April and run until September.
Living in...
This article is part of a guide on where to live in the UAE. Our reporters will profile some of the country’s most desirable districts, provide an estimate of rental prices and introduce you to some of the residents who call each area home.
SANCTIONED
- Kirill Shamalov, Russia's youngest billionaire and previously married to Putin's daughter Katarina
- Petr Fradkov, head of recently sanctioned Promsvyazbank and son of former head of Russian Foreign Intelligence, the FSB.
- Denis Bortnikov, Deputy President of Russia's largest bank VTB. He is the son of Alexander Bortnikov, head of the FSB which was responsible for the poisoning of political activist Alexey Navalny in August 2020 with banned chemical agent novichok.
- Yury Slyusar, director of United Aircraft Corporation, a major aircraft manufacturer for the Russian military.
- Elena Aleksandrovna Georgieva, chair of the board of Novikombank, a state-owned defence conglomerate.
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