Mbappe…. Could it actually happen?
#Mbappe 2020… It’s the rumour that just won’t go away but is it a pipe dream or could it actually be a possibility?
Mbappe has two years left on his contract and with no sign of him signing an extension, it leaves PSG with something of a predicament. Do they cash in this summer while they can still charge and exorbitant fee, wait until next summer when they’ll still likely to be able to command a transfer fee in the region of £100 million, or do they allow him to run down his contract in the hope that his goals and ability to attract players will win them the Champions League? There are a few variables involved such as what happens with Neymar, the situation the club may be in with FFP and of course, the player’s own wishes, so what will or won’t happen in the immediate future, is difficult to speculate on.
So could we afford him? In the last three transfer windows we’ve spent next to nothing in the acquisitions of Minamino and some prospects for the future. We’ve probably recouped what we’ve spent in loan fees for our kids alone! In that time, we’ve won the Champions League after finishing runner up the year before, runner up in the Premier League where we were the most televised team (ker-ching!), won the Super Cup and the Club World Cup, the latter being worth a few bob on its own. Factor in the new Nike deal, the Main Stand effect and the never ending influx of new commercial deals FSG are constantly bringing in and in short, the club is in rude health and must be awash with cash right now.
Saying all that, I don’t think we would stump up the transfer fee it would take to get him this summer UNLESS one of Mane or Salah were to seek pastures new. There’s been talk of Madrid sniffing around Mane and Salah was reported to have said he would commit to us this season and re-evaluate come season’s end. If either of them were to leave, they would command a transfer fee upwards of £150 million. Armed with that in the kitty, we could afford to sign Mbappe in the summer. The thing is though, even if Mbappe decided to run down his contracts, he would astonishingly still only be 23 years old!
That brings us to wages. Information coming from 4 Korners resident sports investigator Hawthorn, Mbappe currently earns 320k a week and he’s unlikely to be looking for a pay cut at his next club. Salah is our reported top earner at the moment on a basic salary of 200k a week, although as with all FSG contracts, this will be heavily incentivised. Would we be prepared to smash our wage structure and potentially cause disharmony within the team? Maybe not but there may be ways around it and could this potentially be where Nike come into it?
No doubt Nike and Mbappe are global brands in their own right but so is Liverpool football club and in terms of our fan base, we are legion. Just ask Lazio who have had Lucas Leiva win their player of the year vote for the last two seasons despite being a squad player. Or Spurs who had Crouch voted in to their team of the decade ahead of Kane. Or West Ham who had Adrian voted in as their all time FA Cup keeper, despite never winning the competition. Ah, fun times.
Anyway, I digress. I’m no football contract expert but FSG are and they’re very clever with these dealings so there may be a something they could put in his contract that enables him to subsidise his base wage which could be on a par with Salah, much like we have done with Nike. We’ve accepted a lower base rate for higher royalties. Alternatively, perhaps the players would accept him earning more, in the way the Barca and Madrid players always did with Messi and Ronaldo. Wages however, are the biggest potential stumbling block for me.
That brings us to the player. Would he want to come? A few years back when Spurs were nicking all our targets, you would have been laughed out of the Kop for suggesting we could sign the calibre of player Mbappe is. It would have been unthinkable but now?
For purely footballing reasons, why wouldn’t he want to come? We’re the best team in the world right now bar none. We just broke a record across Europe’s top five leagues for points accumulated after this many games and there is no team in world football better placed to push on and have a period of dominance over the next 4-5 years than us. He would get to play for one of Europe’s iconic teams and play under a manager fast on his way to becoming an icon, if he isn’t one already. Even if Mbappe decided to run down his contract, at 23 he could experience the Premier League for 3 years and then still spend his peak years at Madrid if that’s his ultimate ambition.
From the club’s point of view, this would be the biggest signing in our history, in terms of exposure and would change the world’s perspective of the club. FSG always spoke of taking us back to the pinnacle of football and although they’ve arguably done that already, if they could pull off a signing like Mbappe however, it would truly put us back at football’s top table, sandwiched right between Barcelona and Real Madrid.
What do we think then troops, pipe dream or realistic target? My verdict is unlikely but not impossible. Walk on.
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