At present, it seems that the impasse between Kylian Mbappe and Paris Saint-Germain is showing no signs of easing.
The French World Cup winner has made a decision to leave the Ligue Un champions at the end of the forthcoming season, but it’s safe to say that his club are none too happy with what they see as the player trying to earn a lucrative move to Real Madrid.
There’s nothing wrong with that according to super agent, and one of the men behind the creation of the Premier League, Jon Smith.
“I think player power has its place. I would say that because I come from a history of looking after players and I think he is a global superstar,” he said in his exclusive CaughtOffside column.
“The thing that worries me is the influence of the uneducated, and I don’t mean uneducated people. I mean people who are not educated in the world of the business of football, who want to push their kids into deals that are better for them than they are for their child’s footballing growth. It’s a money grab.”
With so many of European football’s players making a move to the Saudi Pro League this summer, there was a record breaking €300m bid made for Mbappe by Al Hilal earlier in the window.
It certainly put the Saudi league front and centre in all of the news media outlets, but it’s vulgarity hasn’t pleased Smith.
“I was talking to some people from Saudi Arabia at the weekend it was all happening (the bid from Al Hilal) and they said to me ‘what do you think?'” he added.
“And I said ‘I think it’s terrible. I think you’re making him a circus clown. You know, he’s not there as a circus act, he’s there as one of the greatest footballers of all time. The fact that you take him on for a year to perform… it’s not how sporting excellence grows. It doesn’t just perform for the person who can pay the most money.’”
As someone that has worked in media circles himself, Smith understands how everything works in that regard, however, even he is a little miffed by what the outlets tend to lead with when speaking about a move such as Mbappe’s.
“I’m a huge fan of all forms of media because we couldn’t achieve what we did in sport without sizeable media support, but I do find it a little churlish at times when the media headline is about the money rather than about the game that’s being played,” he noted.
“So I think I understand where he’s (Mbappe) coming from, and I also understand that a lot of these players come from very, very poor countries where life was really tough for them and their predecessors. Suddenly they’re being thrown 20, 30 million pounds so why wouldn’t you accept that?”
At the end of the day, Mbappe has gone through the proper channels and done everything above board. The fact that PSG are a little stung by it is of no real consequence.