In one of the most shocking football stories of the year, PSG’s French superstar Kylian Mbappé has been linked with a move to Saudi Pro League club Al-Hilal in a move that could be worth up to €1b.
Mbappé has spent six seasons in Paris and has established himself as one of, if not the greatest players on the planet, but has seemingly grown frustrated with the club’s lack of success in the UEFA Champions League and has since pushed for a move to Spanish giants Real Madrid.
Why Saudi Arabia?
With one year left on his contract, PSG’s ownership are keen to ensure that Mbappé doesn’t leave for free next season and are keen to sell him this summer, but Madrid appear hesitant to pay the world record fee that it would take for the French superstar to move across Europe.
Al-Hilal have since bid €259m for Mbappé, with reports of the one-year deal reaching over €1b including salary and image rights deals. This would allow Mbappé to earn an incredible amount of money for a season before moving back to Europe and aim for UEFA Champions League glory with Madrid, all before he reaches 26-years-old.
Saudi Arabia have managed to attract a number of stars to their league for huge salaries in the last couple of months. Usually players would go to less traditionally strong leagues at the end of their career, but the likes of Ruben Neves, Sergej Milinkovic-Savic and Jota are all still in the peak of their career and have previously attracted attention from big clubs in the English Premier League.
Mbappe to move to any Saudi team odds: 2.10
Why is this a problem?
For European football, this would represent a massive power shift – Mbappé, along with Manchester City’s Erling Haaland and Real Madrid’s Vinicius Junior, represent for many the future generation of football, and to have him leave Europe approaching the peak of his career would be terrible for the popularity of big European competitions for casual fans who would usually tune matches just to see him play.
On top of this, the UEFA European Championship is being played next summer in Germany and European football’s biggest star playing halfway across the world for financial reasons sets a bad example for many players around Europe who may choose to leave clubs that they have spent long periods of time developing at in hope of domestic or European glory.
It will be interesting to see if more of world football’s young stars follow the likes of Mbappé over to the middle east in search of a big paycheck.
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