Wednesday, September 16, 2026

Champions League Fallout: Prize Money, Unrest, and Arsenal’s Ill-Timed Parade

Paris Saint-Germain beat Arsenal to win the Champions League for the second year in a row on Saturday.

Reuters-Phil Noble

Paris Saint-Germain won back-to-back UEFA Champions League titles in Budapest on Saturday after defeating Arsenal in a penalty shootout.

Each team had one goal going into the shootout, which Paris Saint-Germain won 4–3 after Arsenal’s Gabriel sent his team’s last chance over the crossbar.

The Ligue 1 champions are taking home an estimated $170 million in prize money from winning Europe, according to The Athletic. (UEFA won’t release exact figures until next year.) It’s close to the roughly $168 million PSG earned last season from winning the league.

Celebrations across France turned wild, with piles of bikes being set on fire and police spraying tear gas on crowds. Authorities confirmed at least one person died in the unrest that saw more than 200 people injured and around 800 arrested. Two people died during the same celebrations last year.

The team held a rally with fans in Paris on Sunday where players showed off the Champions League trophy.

Later Sunday, the club posted a statement on social media, originally in French, saying it was “saddened by the violence and damage that affected our city.”

“These acts reflect neither the values of football nor the spirit of this celebration,” the team said.

Reuters-Isabel Infantes

Arsenal Celebrates, Too

Arsenal will only earn about $3 million less than PSG from its Champions League campaign, The Athletic projected. The team has already made about $1 billion in revenue this season, a new Premier League record.

Arsenal returned to London for an awkwardly timed victory parade Sunday to celebrate winning the Premier League for the first time in 22 years earlier this month. Hundreds of thousands of fans attended the parade, with London’s Metropolitan Police calling the event one of its biggest operations of the year.

Arsenal Women, who won the FIFA Women’s Champions Cup in February, also participated in the parade through North London.

After weeks of a dizzying title race in England, promotions and relegations, fights for European qualification, and league victors being crowned, the Champions League final marked soccer’s last big hurrah before all eyes turn to North America. The 2026 World Cup, hosted in 16 cities across the U.S., Mexico, and Canada, kicks off on June 11.

Many of the players who competed in the Champions League final Saturday will be in the World Cup, and they have a quick turnaround from their club seasons to the biggest international tournament.

Six PSG players will represent France, including star Ousmane Dembélé, while four will play for Portugal. Four Arsenal Gunners are playing for England, including Declan Rice and Bukayo Saka, and three, including goalkeeper David Raya, will represent Spain. 

Players on both teams are representing a number of other countries, including Morocco, Ecuador, South Korea, Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway, Germany, and Sweden.

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