La Liga's Mbappe statement is accurate - but stinks of fear
Paul Macdonald
- Updated: 22 May 2022 23:30 BST
- 4 min read
La Liga are a little scared.
The league of the world's best talents no longer has, well, the best talents. The drain began when Neymar moved to PSG, continued with Cristiano Ronaldo and culminated with Lionel Messi last summer.
There is no standout Galactico at any club; Barcelona have a transitioning team, Real Madrid's current world class players are ageing rapidly, and the rest of the teams have also suffered losses, mainly to the Premier League.
While the talent production of Spain remains high (though perhaps not as high as it used to be), it's not gone unnoticed that La Liga matches, particularly the Clasico, aren't as essential viewing as they once were.
The league is still successful in a number of areas, not least broadcast innovation and self-promotion, but the concept of what a La Liga TV deal is worth is at a subjective moment.
𝐎𝐮𝐫 𝐡𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐲 𝐢𝐬 𝐰𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐧 𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞
𝐈𝐜𝐢 𝐜’𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐏𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐬
🔴🔵 #KylianCestParis pic.twitter.com/e3ZSY1E3FZ— Paris Saint-Germain (@PSG_English) May 21, 2022
While their current deal is way off the power of the Premier League, they are still comfortably the second biggest league in the world in terms of viewership and revenue and it's a position that they can't afford to slip on, and they need to provide fans with a reason to watch.
Kylian Mbappe was supposed to be that player. Real Madrid believed it so much they allegedly printed jerseys with his name on it. The league believed it and thought that they had their man to head up all sponsorship and marketing material.
So the statement that La Liga released - threatening to report PSG to UEFA, the French authorities, the EU and anyone else they can think of - does seem somewhat hollow and with a hint of sour grapes.
The deal they all thought that was to be done now won't be, and there's not a player of the profile of Mbappe out there available to fill the void. It is quite the predicament.
And they are right to be fearful. League president Javier Tebas has been largely outspoken against the state-owned organisations, particularly PSG, and how their spending warps the market for the remaining teams.
It may seem incongruous for him to talk about the finances of other teams given Barcelona find themselves well over €1 Billion in the red, but it is the salary limits that Tebas himself apportioned onto the clubs that is making them more fiscally responsible.
La Liga are right about PSG
It is these self-imposed rules that have no such bearing over PSG; they are already emboldened by their ability to see off Financial Fair Play regulations in the past and UEFA's main control measure does not faze them.
Indeed, PSG an eye-watering €503m on wages in the 2020/21 season, and since then they've added Lionel Messi, Sergio Ramos, Georginio Wijnaldum and Gianluigi Donnarumma, so it's safe to say that that number is about to increase significantly.
PSG and Qatar are obsessed with winning the Champions League and they seem willing to do and spend whatever it takes. Mbappe's deal basically gives him de facto control of the club, on a ludicrous wage, and means that we get three more seasons of him being massively better than the remainder of Ligue 1.
READ MORE: La Liga's statement in full
Messi and Neymar will stay, too. A few others will probably come as well. And it's all completely unsustainable, damaging, and stupid. A state-run organisation shouldn't be allowed to skew an entire sport in this way but it's not been stopped, and now doesn't look possible to, either.
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And so if the source of the message - La Liga - is ignored, and the message itself is focused on, then it makes complete sense and should be listened to. But whether there's actually any substance to it other than ranting into the void remains to be seen.
But the message should be that Kylian Mbappe staying at PSG isn't a good look for football in general.
