Leonardo: European football a must for PSG

Leonardo believes the absence of Champions League football is the main reason Paris Saint-Germain have missed their big transfer targets.

The capital club have missed out on David Beckham and Alexandre Pato in recent weeks, but the Brazilian believes that the club will soon have everything in place to compete for the best players in the game.

“Paris, it’s Paris, and I don’t think people realise that,” Leonardo told Canal Plus. “But we do not attract players because we do not compete in the Champions League.”

“Beckham did not come for family reasons, but we have everything organised for others to be able to come because this is Paris.”

“As for Pato, this is the transfer market. Stories like that will happen 10 times.”

“For our part, we have a lot of things to do. We must first grow in order to attract players like that.”

“And to buy a player from Brazil today is very difficult. (Santos striker) Neymar has a higher wage to all of the players on our team.”

Leonardo also pointed out that PSG have also been frustrated by the stance of some of their French rivals.

“The market is a question of opportunity,” he said. “Pato was a very good one. But the important thing is to be aware of what is happening.”

“I understand that clubs such as Lille, Lyon or Marseille have refused to sell players to PSG and instead prefer to sell them to foreign clubs.”

“But this is normal. This is normal, this is competition.”

Meanwhile, Leonardo also defended his handling of the dismissal of former coach Antoine Kombouare, who was axed just before Christmas with the club top of Ligue 1 and replaced by the far more high-profile Carlo Ancelotti.

“For Antoine it was very hard,” Leonardo said. “But he knew that we were thinking about changing coach from the beginning.”

“And Ancelotti is one of the strongest coaches in the world. I’m not here to make a comparison with the former coach but Ancelotti has experience and he knows all the systems.”

PSG are three points clear at the top of the Ligue 1 table and their next outing is away to Brest on January 28.