Invited like all the Blues to participate in a morning with the sponsors of the French team, Tuesday March 22, Kylian Mbappé dodged the session in favor of Volkswagen, Orange, Coca-Cola, Konami, Uber Eats and Xbox. An unprecedented decision in Clairefontaine, but not in the world of football. Before him, last July, Cristiano Ronaldo caused a sensation at Euro 2021 by causing the Coca-Cola share price to fall on the stock market. How? ‘Or’ What ? By dismissing the famous soda placed in front of him at a press conference. A few days later, Paul Pogba imitated him, this time with a bottle of Heineken. A growing trend? Decryption.
“Until now, a football player was someone who had no brains, no opinion, who kicked the ball and that’s it, says Gary Tribou, lecturer at the University of Strasbourg and expert in sports marketing. From the start of his career, Mbappé positioned himself as a player with an opinion. He’s not the only one to take a stand, to make a societal judgment, it’s pretty good for football.” General delegate of Sporsora, Magali Tézenas du Montcel admits to having been surprised by Mbappé’s gesture: “Yes, it surprised me, even if there had been the gesture of Ronaldo, Pogba or even that of Griezmann who abandoned his partner Huawei to support the Uyghurs. We knew that partners could leave an athlete with a behavior incorrect, but athletes who deny their sponsors, it’s quite recent.
This absence of the French international goes against the convention of the Blues which obliges each player to submit to the marketing operations of the partners of the French team, against a remuneration of 25,000 euros per match to the players. But for the Mbappé clan, the reason is simple: not all brands correspond to the values of Kylian Mbappé, who already donates his image rights to the charities he has chosen. In addition, the income generated by these contracts would not be redistributed enough to “football from below”. The star of the Blues would also like more consultation between the players and the FFF on this subject.
Before Mbappé, Ronaldo or Pogba, other big names in football had already contested the obligations linked to sponsors. We could thus cite the famous example of Johan Cruyff, Puma muse in the 1970s, who had one of the three Adidas stripes removed from the Netherlands jersey.
The difference is that in the case of Mbappé, this does not concern a conflict with a personal contract of the player, who has established his own partnerships with Hublot, EA Sports or Nike. According to The Parisian, it is the national team’s collaborations with Betclic, Coca-Cola and KFC that would bother Mbappé, who is sensitive to issues related to nutrition and sports betting. His lawyer Maître Delphine Verheyden has been discussing the subject for several months with the FFF, without winning the case. This explains Tuesday’s boycott, a decision that could be a milestone.
If the intelligence of the genius of Bondy is often put forward, it should also be remembered that he is very well surrounded, insists Magali Tézenas du Montcel: “His lawyer is extremely competent, she is very careful about the image of the athletes she deals with. She is not at all the type to make a publicity stunt. Mbappé has few partners, he is committed, regularly donates money to charities. By taking this decision, Kylian Mbappé therefore creates a precedent which goes in the direction of more consultation between the FFF and the players regarding the choice of partners. If the gesture is commendable, is this perspective plausible?
“If you have to get the agreement of the players to sign partners, that will cause some problems. A player who plays for an institution must be in solidarity with the economic model of the institution or the competition. It is likely to multiply, if only for the other players of the France team. »
Magali Tezenas du Montcel
at franceinfo: sport
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Magali Tézenas de Montcel summarizes: “For the image, it’s good, we prefer personalities with rough edges. On the other hand, for the economic model of football, I don’t see how that can be reconciled. Where do we put cursor? No brand will be 100% incriticable.”
A position supported by Gary Tribou, lecturer at the University of Strasbourg: “The best sponsors are those who have things to be forgiven, we call that exculpatory sponsorship. If we start to nitpick, which I can understand from an ethical point of view, we stop, for example, the world in Qatar. It can go a long way. It’s a pretty fundamental questioning of football business.”
In the meantime, the question that remained was that of possible sanctions against the Frenchman. “The only way out is to minimize the case. No one has an interest in making it a state affair on the front page of the media”prophesied Gary Tribou, a few minutes before Noël Le Graët never breaks the silence in the team [article payant]. “A letter from the lawyers of the Federation will be sent to Mbappé and his lawyerconfirmed Le Graët, who said he was against any form of sanction. We will see point by point what is the problem. We want to improve things and make people happy, sponsors and players.”
The president of the FFF recalls, in passing, that “all revenue goes to amateur football (€90m this season) and training”. Le Graët indicated that he would be satisfied with a discussion in the coming days with the star of the Blues, before concluding: “Little worries are part of life. Kylian will be on the pitch in Marseille and I hope he will be good.”
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