PSG 1996 vs 2026! David Ginola reveals only similarity between Luis Enrique's Champions League winners and Canal Plus pioneers

Ginola made 158 appearances for PSG and won four trophies with them after joining in 1992 at a time when the club received significant investment from broadcaster Canal Plus, who looked to turn them into more of a brand. When PSG were acquired by Qatar Sports Investments in 2011, the club underwent further changes to boost its global reputation.

Speaking exclusively to GOAL, Ginola insisted that the arrival of ambitious new owners is the only comparable factor between his PSG side and that of the modern day.

Ginola said: "I understand your question, and this question has been asked many times, but I hate doing that because you can't compare the time in the 1990s and the time in the 2020s and 2010s. At the time, you had no [mobile] phone, no internet, no social network, nothing. The training grounds, if you look around now or you go to the PSG training ground, everything [different] is there. I encountered a woman downstairs, she was introducing me to how you recover psychologically, but we didn't have that sort of thing in our time, we needed to think by ourselves.

"I think that's why it's very difficult to compare, but what I can compare, the Canal Plus era was a good era because obviously you end up with a Cup Winners' Cup in 1996. But ever since QSI took over PSG in 2011… I mean, everything went really great until now. You're finishing 14 years and you end up in 2025 with six trophies [in a year], what can you say more about the success of a club?

"The club is well known. I was in Bangkok last week in Thailand, and the PSG shirt is amongst Liverpool shirts, Manchester United shirts, and that was the two clubs that was the most loved in Thailand. And now you see Paris introduced to Asia. So I think it's a mark of fabric. It's a mark of progress, it's a mark of respect, and most of it is a mark of success."

Ginola still holds a place in his heart for PSG. When asked by GOAL how he feels about the club after all these years, he replied: "Well, it's amazing. I was playing in a... well, let's say, a smaller club [Brest] previous to Paris. I had my first cap with the French national team. And then the club went bankrupt and I was a free agent. And I had all different possibilities to join Marseille, Bordeaux, Monaco, and Paris at the time were the best club in the country. And I decided to join Paris, that was in 1992 and It was an amazing journey from from A to Z.

"Everything I encountered in Paris was brilliant. You know, you arrived there, you're a young player with a promising career, but you have to prove it. You have to prove every day in training, you have to prove with the people in general, with the fans, to be accepted by the players, by everyone. This is exactly what I did for four years, every game, every trophy, every European game we played.

"We were a young team. Paris was entering a phase with Canal Plus at the time, we were not really recognised in Europe. We had to prove that we were capable of competing with the best in Europe. So when we started our first European campaign, I think it was in Napoli. We beat them, we reached the semi-final, and that was the case three years in a row. We won a league, we won two French Cups, one League Cup over four years. It was good. I was Players' Player of the Year in 1993-94. So, yeah, it was a complete journey with Paris Saint-Germain, so it's a club that is deep in my heart. It represents something very important."

Speaking on PSG's new 'La Maison' experience in London, Ginola said: "The house itself is just amazing, positioned perfectly in the centre of London. I like the fact that you have, on every floor, you've got something different to discover from wellness to shopping, food and drink, the different partners, I think it's a great, great place. I mean, this is the kind of place I could stay a few days. I think it's well maintained in terms of Paris is not too much, you know? Like if you have a red and blue everywhere, it's a bit too much. Like this (a tracking light) will just sparkle in every little corners, and I like that. It's not too flashy. On this wall, you've got just one Eiffel Tower, you've got something and everything is related to Paris, but it's well made."