All eyes in the soccer world will be on Munich on Saturday for the Champions League final, pitting Paris Saint-Germain against Inter Milan in the capper to the 2024-25 European club season.
Neither team expected be in this position, with Manchester City and Real Madrid the heavy Champions League favorites ahead of the season.
PSG (+1600) had the seventh-best odds to win the tournament, while Inter (+2000) was ninth, according to BetMGM.
The game features two of the most valuable soccer clubs in the world, and both teams will earn at least $155 million in prize money for making the final. The windfalls will help the final accounting on the 2024-25 season, after recent huge losses by both teams.
Over the past three seasons, Inter has lost a combined €119 million ($136 million based on current exchange rates) after player trading, while PSG is in the red by €541 million ($617 million).
The two clubs face separate challenges to shore up their finances, with France’s broadcast situation in shambles and Inter searching to solve its stadium future.
PSG built a massive global brand with superstars Lionel Messi, Neymar and Kylian Mbappé on the roster. The stars are gone, which has helped the bottom line with payroll down from a peak of $824 million, but commercial revenue from sponsors and merchandise is still the fourth-highest in the world at $422 million. PSG has 20 stores around the world, including in New York, London, Paris, Miami, Las Vegas, Doha and Tokyo.
The issue facing PSG is a league-wide one at Ligue 1. The French league faces a financial crisis with domestic broadcaster DAZN trying to renegotiate the terms of their agreement after only one year.
The two sides have failed to find common ground, and clubs’ broadcast revenue is at risk.
It comes on the heels of the failure of Mediapro’s $1.1 billion a year deal during the 2020-21 season. Amazon and Canal+ later secured the rights at half of what Mediapro committed before DAZN stepped in.
PSG can handle the downtick in revenue, thanks to its hefty commercial and matchday revenue, as well as regular Champions League payouts. But the rest of Ligue 1, where almost every team already loses money, will feel the impact more so. It will also widen the financial gap between PSG and the rest of the league. MLB’s revenue disparity is nothing compared to Ligue 1. PSG’s 2023-24 revenue was three times that of second-ranked Olympique Lyonnais.
PSG has dominated on the field, with 11 titles in 13 years—it finished second the other two seasons. The run coincides with new ownership. In 2011, Qatar Sports Investments (QSI) bought the club, then a middling team, for roughly $75 million. The investment fund tied to the Qatari state has spent billions on the operations and players.
Inter Milan has stabilized their finances since the ownership tenure of Chinese retail giant Suning, with a transfer to investment firm Oaktree Capital in 2024 when Suning did not repay or refinance its loan from Oaktree—the club was put up for collateral. Yet, Inter still needs to sort out its stadium future, which keeps matchday and commercial revenue lagging behind the other biggest clubs in Europe.
Inter and AC Milan share the iconic San Siro venue, the largest stadium in Italy, which is a century old and does not have the compliment of revenue opportunities in modern-day facilities. The two clubs have pursued separate and shared futures together. In March, Inter and Milan proposed the acquisition of the current stadium and surrounding area, along with a feasibility plan for constructing a new state-of-the-art stadium.
PSG has never won a Champions League title. Inter had won three times, with the last in 2010.
