Real Madrid fans got their hopes up during the final weekend of the summer 2021 transfer window, but the dream move was not to be. Well, it was to be for another Ligue 1 star in Eduardo Camavinga, but Kylian Mbappe, on the other hand, was unable to make his highly-anticipated jump from PSG to Los Blancos.
Mbappe could still move for free in 2022, despite PSG’s public waffling, but Madridistas do have a fear in the back of their minds that the pressure could prove to be too much for the young man from Paris.
Let’s take a look at five lessons fans can learn from the topsy-turvy Mbappe saga this summer.
PSG operate in their own universe
This is the lesson that keeps reverberating in my head, because it is the one that angers me the most. It is very rare to see a superstar player put in a corner by a club. Usually superstars have enough sway to make a move happen with one year left in their contract if they want a move, and teams generally acquiesce to the demand both to recoup a transfer fee for such a player and to ensure that future superstars don’t get the feeling a club thinks it can treat its players any way they would like.
Well, PSG don’t seem to give a damn about customs or about what people think of them, even future stars who may be deciding between PSG and another transfer offer. With the ECA under Nasser Al-Khelaifi’s grasp, the World Cup in Qatar, and a ridiculous amount of money that only a state-backed sportswashing enterprise can have, PSG are above the law. They are the law. They are UEFA, they are FIFA, they run this sport. And that was the message they sent to Mbappe, to Real Madrid, and to everyone else in football.
Real Madrid will be spared no tears, for they are not exactly an angelic presence in football – least of all after Florentino Perez’s ludicrously amateurish attempt to organize a closed European Super League. But even if you have no sympathy for Los Blancos, remember there is nothing stopping PSG from using their power in this way for other means, if they so choose.