Paris Saint-Germain and Bayern Munich meet in the Champions League semi-finals on Tuesday, bringing together two clubs that have spent the season cruising through their domestic leagues and arrive with the title of favourites on Bayern’s side.
PSG, the defending Champions League champions, went into the weekend four points clear of Lens at the top of Ligue 1. Bayern had already wrapped up the Bundesliga title. The French club have won 11 of the past 13 French league titles. Bayern have won 13 Bundesliga titles in 14 years.
The numbers underline how far both clubs sit above the rest at home. According to Deloitte, Bayern are the third-richest club in the world by revenue and PSG are fourth. Fifteen of the 30 wealthiest clubs in the world by revenue come from the Premier League, while only four come from Germany and just one from France. Wolves are the 29th richest club in the world by revenue, with annual income a little under double that of Heidenheim and about eight times that of Metz.
That gap helps explain the path both teams have taken to this point. The Premier League’s depth and spending power keep its clubs under strain deep into the season, while PSG and Bayern have had more room to manage their resources for Europe. Aston Villa finished sixth in England last season with revenues of £491m, compared with Lyon’s £141m in sixth place in France and Mainz’s £105m in sixth place in Germany.
Michel Platini once described English clubs as lions in winter but lambs in spring. Over the past couple of seasons, that has looked more like exhausted lambs by the time the knockout rounds arrive. PSG under Luis Enrique are not the old version of the club that leaned on famous names. His first major achievement there was to break that dependency, and it has left them looking more balanced for nights like this.
That is the friction inside this semi-final. Bayern and PSG look like continental heavyweights, but their routes have been eased by domestic dominance that has not existed for clubs fighting a harder weekly battle in England. The winner on Tuesday will not just be the side with more money or more trophies at home, but the one that has used a gentler season best when Europe turns unforgiving.
