By Samindra Kunti
August 18 – Paris Saint-Germain have confirmed the return of former player and coach Luis Fernandez to the club, this time in the role of the youth academy’s sporting director as the club seek a further reboot.
“I love the youth academy, I love these youngsters and evolution truly exists in this world,” said Fernandez. “With the people already in place at Camp des Loges, we will try to obtain good results. PSG is a club that really needs to be able to nurture its best young talents in order to progress and ultimately succeed.”
The former French international coached Guinea until last year and worked as a pundit in the French media, but in his new role he will lead the Parisian youth academy under the responsibility of sporting director Antero Henrique.
In 1978 Fernandez signed for PSG as a player, going on to make 200 appearances for the club. He also had two coaching spells at the Parc des Princes in the nineties and naughties. The former club captain will need to convince youth players to sign their first professional contract with the club and grow PSG’s network of allied clubs to loan out these homegrown talents.
In recent weeks the search for a satellite club has intensified at PSG, with Belgian top flight club Mouscron potential favorites to join the Qatari/French revolution. Israeli agent Pini Zahavi is on the board of the Walloon club. He was a key figure in Neymar’s world record transfer from FC Barcelona to PSG. Following the Brazilian’s arrival the club are looking to offload Hatem Ben Arfa, Grzegorz Krychowiak, Lucas and Serge Aurier. They already sold Blaise Matuidi for a reported €14 million to Italian giants Juventus.
Sporting director Henrique also maintains a good relationship with Belgian club Antwerp, where Luciano d’ Onofrio is the driving force behind the club’s project to become a domestic powerhouse again. Antwerp already have a partnership with FC Porto, where Henrique was a sporting director in the past. The Belgian club seek to establish a similar partnership with PSG.
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