Updated: 16 May 2026 13:49 BST |
7 min read
PSG have built a reputation as big spenders in the transfer market and have seen some of the world’s best players pass through the doors at Parc des Princes.
The Qatari-owned side once possessed the most expensive player ever in the form of Neymar, who was later paired with Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappe in a combination that failed to live up to its promise.
That’s evidence that they’ve not always got it right when signing players, but they’ve also got it wrong when selling, too.
Here are 10 sales that PSG regret.
10) Ronaldinho – to Barcelona for €30m in 2003
In defence of PSG, there was little holding onto Ronaldinho when he left for Barcelona in 2003. The Brazilian genius was already one of the most entertaining players in world football across his two seasons in Paris, and had become one of the most effective too, winning the World Cup with the Selecao in 2002.
His €30m fee was a reasonable one, especially in 2003, but Ronaldinho established himself as best player in the world at Camp Nou, shining brightest in the 2005/6 campaign when he helped Barca to the continental treble of La Liga, Supercopa de Espana and Champions League.
📆 Ronaldinho made his debut on this day in 1998
🇧🇷 Gremio
🇫🇷 PSG
🇪🇸 Barcelona
🇮🇹 AC Milan
🇧🇷 Flamengo
🇧🇷 Atletico Mineiro
🇲🇽 Queretaro
🇧🇷 Fluminense@10Ronaldinho was just a joy to watch wherever he played ✨pic.twitter.com/hBEfQmA91s— Football Transfers (@Transfersdotcom) March 4, 2022
9) Lucas Digne – to Barcelona for €20.5m in 2016
Another player who left for Barcelona, some 13 years later, was Lucas Digne. Again, PSG fetched a reasonable fee for the left-back, making a €5.5 profit on the player they signed from Lille three years earlier, but their subsequent travails in the position make the sale a mistake, nonetheless.
Layvin Kurzawa’s arrival from Monaco in 2015 had prompted Digne’s loan to Roma in his final PSG season. Juan Bernat was then acquired from Bayern Munich two years later, but missed more than 70 games through injury, the worst of those a ruptured cruciate ligament.
An injury-free Digne has since racked up more than 50 France caps, making more than 250 Premier League appearances with Everton and Aston Villa since leaving Barca.
He is still going strong at 32 years old and is in the 2026 World Cup squad for France.
8) Salvatore Sirigu – to Torino on a free transfer in 2017
Salvatore Sirigu was basically signed to be Javier Pastore’s mate in Paris, the goalkeeper arriving from Palermo at the same time as the Argentine in 2011 with the latter the first flagship signing of the new Qatari-back era.
But Sirigu was a revelation in goal, and became a firm fan favourite at the Parc des Princes. But then David Luiz was signed in 2014 – a fine footballer, yes, a great defender, questionable. Sirigu kept 22 clean sheets in his last season before having Luiz in front of him, and 16 in his first with him.
Allowed to leave on loan for Sevilla and Osasuna before returning to Italy in 2017 with Torino.
7) Gianluigi Donnarumma – to Manchester City on a free transfer in 2025
Donnarumma was a decisive figure for PSG as they lifted their first Champions League title in 2025, producing heroics in the latter part of the campaign, most notably against Liverpool and Arsenal.
It came as something of a surprise, then, when PSG did not renew his contract at the end of the season and allowed him to depart for Manchester City on a free transfer.
Les Parisiens did not want the Italy goalkeeper to break their wage structure and were adamant they were not going to bow to his demands.
In his place arrived Lucas Chevalier from Lille. He was warming the bench behind Matvey Safonov by Christmas time, with the Russian, who was Donnarumma’s understudy at Parc des Princes, claiming the role on a permanent basis.
In hindsight, it was a regrettable call.
6) Christopher Nkunku – to RB Leipzig for €13m in 2019
Christopher Nkunku was allowed to leave PSG the same summer as Moussa Diaby, but fetched less and did more since, at one point blossoming into one of the most coveted players in world football during his time with RB Leipzig.
At his peak in Germany, Nkunku scored 35 goals and assisted 20 more from 52 games in all competitions, his goal-involvements coming in at a rate of one every 78 minutes he played.
A subsequent move to Chelsea never worked out and he is now at AC Milan.
5) Zlatan Ibrahimovic – to Manchester United on a free transfer in 2016
Zlatan Ibrahimovic was once the King of Paris, scoring 156 goals in 180 games and firing them to four Ligue 1 titles, two of them coming as part of a domestic treble.
Zlatan scored every kind of goal imaginable – free-kicks, volleys, scorpion kicks other players wouldn’t dream of – but Paris failed to extend his contract in the 2015/16 season. The forward was 34 at the time, and PSG probably thought the best of his career was behind him.
Duly won the Europa League with Man Utd and a second Serie A title with former club AC Milan last season, aged 40.
4) Mike Maignan – to Lille for €1m in 2015
The third goalkeeper on this list and one who surely must leave the top brass in Paris with red faces, Mike Maignan is now the AC Milan No.1 and France, having taken the role from Hugo Lloris.
Famously earned Zalatan Ibrahimovic’s respect for answering back to the big Swede after saving one of his shots in training, Maignan never got his first-team debut in Paris and was allowed to leave for Lille for just €1m in 2015. Duly won the Ligue 1 title at PSG’s expense in 2021 before leaving for Milan that summer.
3) Thiago Silva – to Chelsea on a free transfer in 2020
Zlatan had arrived in Paris alongside Milan teammate Thiago Silva in the summer of 2012, with Ibrahimovic modestly explaining at the time that the newly rich capital club had signed the Rossoneri’s two best players.
They turned out to be two of PSG’s best players too, and Silva became captain of the club in 2013, becoming the first Brazilian to lead a Parisian side out in the Champions League final when Paris made it to that stage in 2020 – a game they lost to Bayern Munich (more on that one later…).
PSG also thought Silva had seen brighter days when they allowed his contract to run down in 2020. The very next season, he won the Champions League with Chelsea.
2) Nicolas Anelka – to Arsenal for €575,000 in 1997
A quick hop in the time machine for this one, long before the big money arrived from the Middle East, Nicolas Anelka left PSG for a paltry €575,000 back in February 1997. The young forward had graduated from Paris’s youth academy but was impatient for first-team minutes and joined Arsene Wenger’s French revolution at Arsenal.
The rest, as they say, is history. Anelka top-scored for the Gunners as they did the English domestic double at Sir Alex Ferguson’s Man Utd’s expense in 1998, before continuing onto Real Madrid for €25.6m in 1999.
Won the Champions League with Real before an up-and-down career that took in Fenerbahce and Bolton but also a second wave at Chelsea, which brought with it a second Champions League final. A European champion with France to boot, PSG can only wonder what might have been.
1) Kingsley Coman – to Juventus on a free transfer in 2014
Surely the most embarrassing departure for PSG, Kingley Coman’s rise since leaving is a large part of the reason president Nasser Al-Khelaifi changed his policy for PSG to focus on recruiting players from the surrounding area.
Their youngest ever debutant when he left Paris, having played for the club at 16 years, eight months and four days, Coman left on a free for Juventus in 2014 before joining Bayern Munich on a permanent basis following a two-year loan in 2017.
Coman has won league titles in every single one of his first 11 top-flight seasons, a champion across championships in France, Italy and Germany.
And perhaps most painfully for PSG, that Champions League final that Silva led them out at in Lisbon in 2020 saw Bayern prevail 1-0, with Coman scoring what proved to be a winner with a header. He may not be the best player on this list, but his sale proved the most painful for this reason.
Related stories:
Five players who could leave PSG this summer
PSG’s 10 worst transfers of all time
The FootballTransfers app
Check out FootballTransfers’ new app for all of football’s big storylines, transfer rumours and exclusive news in one convenient place directly on your mobile device.
The FootballTransfers app is available on Google Play and in the Apple App Store. Download here:
•Google Play
•App Store
View full bio
