Qatar Sports Investment took over Paris Saint-Germain in 2011. The capital club began flexing the financial muscle in 2012 when they brought in a young Marco Verratti, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, and Gregory Van der Wiel.
In an interview with Kick’t Net, the 33-year-old spoke about his arrival to the French capital and stated that he didn’t choose to join the Ligue 1 side; more so, Van der Wiel didn’t have a choice considering where he was at that point in his career following his switch in agents.
“I didn’t really choose Paris. After the 2010 World Cup, I was less good. I missed my Euro 2012. And I didn’t have as many options as before. Unfortunately, at that point, I was reluctantly forced to change agents. For my career, I had to do it. I joined Mino Raiola. He already had some players at PSG, like Zlatan, so the connection was easy, and I was able to go there,” Van der Wiel said.
“I had not been followed or wanted for a long time by the club. It was more of a fallback because of a mistake on my part. I had signed a pre-contract a few months before with Valence, and then I changed my mind. I didn’t want to go there anymore. I don’t really know why. Time passed, Ajax pushed me on the bench to play Van Rhijn because I only had one year on my contract. I really had to go, and PSG was there.”
