Smiles blissfully: Kylian Mbappé after his contract extension at Paris Saint Germain. In Spain, people are far less happy about the deal
What: AP/Michel Pinler
With hundreds of millions of euros, Paris Saint-Germain convinced superstar Kylian Mbappé to stay. Real Madrid went away empty-handed. A breach of the rules, the Spanish league finds and lodges a complaint with Uefa. The Paris approach is changing the “ecosystem of football”.
Dhe Primera Division has had dazzling figureheads in recent years. Two of the greatest footballers in history, Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, spent their prime in Spain’s football league. After the grandees left, Kylian Mbappé should become the new draft horse.
But Real Madrid, Spain’s record champions, tried in vain for the French wonder striker. Paris Saint-Germain, Mbappé’s employer, persuaded his employee with money. Lot of money.
The Spanish league finds too much money and has now filed a complaint against the French champions with the European football association Uefa for violating financial fair play. A similar complaint was filed against Manchester City in April, the Primera Division announced on Wednesday.
Kylian Mbappé last played in the jersey of the French national team in the Nations League
What: AP/Thibault Camus
The background to the lawsuit is the extremely high-paying contract with which the PSG owners from the Emirate of Qatar persuaded superstar Mbappé to stay. Spain were convinced the 23-year-old Frenchman would join Real Madrid in the summer after his old contract expired on June 30. But Mbappé opted for a rumored earnest money of 300 million euros and annual net remuneration of 50 million euros by 2025. Too much for the Madrilenians.
Spanish league announces lawsuit
LaLiga laments that Paris and Abu Dhabi-backed English champions Manchester City “continuously violate applicable rules of financial fair play”. It is believed that such practices “change the ecosystem and sustainability of football, are detrimental to all European clubs and leagues and only serve to artificially inflate the market, with the money not being generated in football itself”.
There have already been sanctions from Uefa against both “state clubs”. However, these were later overturned “by bizarre judgments” of the International Court of Arbitration for Sport Cas. Law firms in France and Switzerland have therefore also been commissioned with the aim of taking administrative and legal steps with the responsible authorities in France and the European Union as quickly as possible, it said.
Mbappe has played for Paris since 2017. Since then he has won the French championship four times and the cup three times. To date, he has not been able to win the title in the Champions League that the club leadership has been hoping for, even alongside other superstars such as Neymar and Lionel Messi. Real Madrid won that this year.
