Kylian Mbappe, astronomical transfer fees and the damned state of humanity

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The most coveted player in all of Europe

So, the other day, I was walking across the street thinking about how it would be wise for Real Madrid to pay €120 million for Kylian Mbappe when my eyes fell on a lean kid smashing the bricks with a hammer almost as big as him.

His rib cage protruded through the dark skin as he kept staring at the bricks with a blank look on his eyes and smashed them with the hammer in a rhythmic pattern. I don’t usually do this – actually, come to think of it, I never did it up until that point – I walked up to him and asked his name.

He looked up at me and our gaze locked each other for only a fraction of a second. That tiny moment felt like an eternity; his large eyes exuded an unspeakable amount of pain, almost as though they were asking, ‘why do you want to know my name?’

He put his glance back at the bricks and said, “Kamal.” “What’s your age,” I asked. “16,” he responded without even looking at me again. The pain in his eyes was too much for me to continue talking, so I walked away without asking any further questions.

I reached home, opened my laptop and googled about the minimum wage of a daily labour in Bangladesh. Turns out it is around €50-a-month. Just €50. I just hung my head in despair and wondered what life must be like for these people.

This is a guy that should be having books in his hand instead of a hammer, but there little Kamal was, struggling to keep his family alive by working as a daily labour. The first thought in his mind after waking up in the morning must be about whether he would be able to put on food on the plate for his family.

And then there is Kylian Mbappe; who, in Arsene Wenger’s words, “when he gets up in the morning, he can choose where he wants to go,” as “all the clubs are interested in him.”

The moral barrier of paying €180 million

Is he really worth €180 million?

If he chooses to stay at Monaco and sign a new contract, he still earns around €220,000-a-week for playing football. If, however, he chooses to leave, then it won’t be for anything less than a world-record transfer.

For an 18-year-old kid with only eight months of competitive football, paying the reported €180 million is not only insane but a dent at humanity. I am not saying that football clubs should just give away money to the poor – maybe they should – but spending that much on a player with little experience is morally damning when so many people suffer from not getting to eat even once in a day.

Actually, sod the inexperience bit – spending this much money on any player borders on unethical. What happens here is that the rich get richer by the money they make from the common person as every penny that clubs make comes from their hard work.

We are helpless to want the best

Lionel Messi has led Barca to new heights

But then again, is it really wrong for clubs to bring the best talent to their team? Is it really wrong for anyone to think about the best for themselves? In a world such as this, almost everyone is so helpless that they are forced to choose the best.

For example, I could just share most of my income with the needy, but I won’t do it because that’s not the best for me given that I may soon have people for whom I will be responsible. 

Similarly, Real Madrid – for example – can’t risk losing a player like Mbappe that could potentially help them win many titles likes Lionel Messi did with Barcelona. These are the little things that decide the fate of the club, at least in the short term.

When you have power, you exert it to stay on top or risk losing it. This is just the damned way of this world – and that is perhaps why so many clubs are willing to pay an exuberant fee for the teenager.

Now, there is little doubt that he is the best teenage player in the world, but even if we leave out the moral aspect of things and concentrate solely on the commercial and playing benefits, spending €180 million on him doesn’t make sense – not now at least.

Even without the moral barrier, it doesn't make sense to spend €180 million on Mbappe

Mbappe might be gold-standard, but is still not worth the risk

The basics have already been mentioned above: Mbappe is 18 and has played for only about eight months of top-level football, so the risk of failure always remains. How can we forget the likes of Freddy Adu, who signed a deal with Nike at the mere age of 13 and was dubbed as the next Pele, and his fall from grace?

However, screw that. Mbappe seems too talented to lose his way and that’s why it is very important for him to stay at Monaco for at least another year. This not only guarantees playing time for him and stable improvement, but it also helps boost his commercial image – making it more sensible for clubs to pay over the odds for him.

Mbappe’s rise in stock over the last 6 months has been nothing short of extraordinary. This is the summer of the Kylian Mbappe: where the likes of us are writing about him and squeezing out every penny from the reads that his articles get.

There is no doubt that his brand has been boosted, but it is still quite far from what one would hope from a €180 million player. When Real Madrid signed Cristiano Ronaldo for a then world record fee of €94 million, he was guaranteed to bring them a profit on the commercial aspect alone.

With Mbappe, that is still not assured as his name is still not really as powerful as some of the elites of the game.

Meanwhile, PSG’s €222 million chase for Neymar makes more sense because he is a star in every sense of the word – and will certainly attract a lot of money to the Parisien outfit with his brand image.

Finally, spending such a gargantuan fee for a teenager will most certainly open a can of worms that will further inflate the transfer market. As it is, the market is at its worst and spending something as outrageous as that will only further inspire clubs to ask for exorbitant fees for their precious talents in the future.

Real Madrid already opened a can of worms in their first Galactico era. All these world-record breaking transfers that you see now have Florentino Perez’s ideology buried deep in them. If he does it again, well only God knows what will happen next.

In conclusion, for the sake of humanity and the safety of the transfer market, Mbappe shouldn’t be bought for €180 million now.

I repeat: now.

Also read: Pep Guardiola and the myth of focusing on cantera instead of cartera 

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