PSG are out of the Champions League, after falling to a 2-0 aggregate defeat to Borussia Dortmund in the semi-finals.
Their 1-0 second-leg defeat was sealed with a Mats Hummels header on Tuesday night, ensuring BVB will head to the final in Wembley on June 1st at the Parisians' expense.
It is hard to categorise a semi-final exit as a "failure" but, when considering the recent history of a team of PSG's riches, it is also hard to categorise this as anything else.
Failure to progress to the decider in London means that Kylian Mbappé will likely leave this summer without a single European trophy from his time at one of the richest clubs in the world, and just one appearance in a major European final.
Bankrolled by Nasser Al-Khelaifi and the Qatari state, PSG have had untold riches to play with in recent years and yet have consistently come up short in their attempts to reach the European summit.
Speaking on RTÉ post-match on Tuesday, Richie Sadlier laid bare the reasons for their persistent failure on the European stage.
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Richie Sadlier perfectly sums up why PSG always come up short
Even with the enormous wealth of PSG compared to their opponents, it was telling that few football fans were surprised to see the French side come up short against Borussia Dortmund.
A seemingly toxic culture at the club has forced out the likes of Lionel Messi and Neymar in recent years - not that their presence helped the club to win any major European honours either - and the squad that is left is a fragmented shell of the might PSG hoped to hold when Qatari investment began 13 years ago.
Speaking on punditry duty for RTÉ after PSG's semi-final exit, Richie Sadlier shared his lack of empathy for a club which has again failed to live up to the hype.
Their club was all about indulging the egos of the biggest stars in the dressing room and opposed to developing, or fostering or enforcing a work ethic - the kind of work ethic that is in all of the other dressing rooms of all the other team left in the competition. The stuff that you can't just be picked in the team if you don't have.
I have never felt that the main PSG players over the years - because of their off-field antics or attitudes to training or missing days - would be punished; because they never were.
They were always of more standing and more authority than the coaches. And when you have a dressing room set-up like that, or a wider culture which puts up with that, at this level you are going to get found out.
I have no real sympathy. Sometimes, like watching Man City come short a few times, I'd feel sorry for them. Because they worked so hard, the manager puts in so much, they're a likeable bunch of players and there is no real villains. I have never really felt sorry for PSG.
I have never really sat here and thought 'oh God would you not get a bit of luck!?' or 'your man deserves it' or 'they deserve it'.
It was a concise and brutal rant which summed up the indifference many fans and pundits feel towards a team that should, on paper, be right up there competing for the European Cup every year.
"Their club was all about indulging the egos of the biggest stars in the dressing room and opposed to developing, or fostering or enforcing a work ethic." Richie Sadlier is clear about where Paris St Germain's failure in Europe stems from. #RTEsoccer #ChampionsLeague pic.twitter.com/0VDRHG1Xcs
— RTÉ Sport (@RTEsport) May 7, 2024
When asked by Joanne Cantwell where his assumptions about PSG's players had come from, Sadlier offered further explanation.
I don't feel like the Champions League is their destiny or what they deserve, or what years of work of building the dressing room or creating a club... I don't feel that with PSG.
(Man City have thrown money) in a very structured way. Any clown can pick a big bag of money and chuck it in a bush.
But if someone else gets a load of money and sits down and goes, 'Right. What is the kind of manager we want? What backroom staff do we want?'.
There is a big churn of managers (at PSG) because none of them have been able to get the full backing of the owners or the full control of the dressing room.
In the 13 years since Nasser Al-Khelaifi took control of PSG, they have reached the last four of the Champions League just three times. With Kylian Mbappé set to leave this summer, their star power - and hopes of reaching that stage once more - take a significant hit.
Real Madrid host Bayern Munich in the second-leg of the other semi-final on Wednesday evening, with the victors set to face Borussia Dortmund at Wembley on June 1.
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