It was while spending time in Paris last summer that I encountered Georges, a supporter of Caen FC, who was convinced that his club, recently purchased at that time by Kylian Mbappe, were on the brink of something extremely big.
Bigger, he told me, than their ‘legendary’ appearance against Real Zaragoza in the 1992 UEFA Cup first round.
Le Monde seemed to be in agreement, quoting various financial experts on why Mbappe, who had just bought 80 per cent of Caen for between 15 and 20 million euros and cleared some of its debts, could only be a force for good.
He also had investments in the electronics company Loewe, the French sailing team SailGP and had founded his own image management company which managed… his own image. Surely Brand Mbappe would attract better players, bigger sponsors, to a club who’d been on the brink of the play-offs the previous season?
It hasn’t quite worked out that way. Former France international Yann M’Vila, briefly of Sunderland and West Brom, rocked up, aged 34, but the season has been an unqualified disaster, with the club relegated to the third tier for the first time in 41 years, 10 points adrift of anyone else. In the process, they’ve worked through three managers, the first of whom, Nicolas Seube, was a legend on the banks of Caen’s River Orne.
With his career at Real Madrid getting off to a complicated start, Mbappe has materialised at his new club only once and, amid his own preoccupations, asked his mum, Fayza Lamari, to take over the management.
With his career at Real Madrid getting off to a complicated start, Kylian Mbappe has materialised at his new club Caen only once
Surely Brand Mbappe would attract better players, bigger sponsors, to a club who’d been on the brink of the play-offs the previous season?
This season has been an unqualified disaster for Caen, with the club relegated to the third tier for the first time in 41 years, 10 points adrift of anyone else
While a lot of us can relate to a decision like that, Madame Lamari’s reflections suggest that by mid-season she was having doubts about the entire enterprise.
‘On the night of the matches, I wanted to leave,’ she said last week. ‘I remember telling Kylian, humbly, that we weren’t deserved and that you have to know when to leave when you’re not wanted.’
This hasn’t played too well with a loyal and fanatical Caen fanbase, 17,000 of whom turned out for the last match of the season last weekend. A graffiti message at the stadium tells the Mbappes: ‘Humbly, you do not deserve us.’
Georges feels rather the same way. ‘It wasn’t what we were told. We didn’t get Mbappe or his benefits at all,’ he messages me to say. A sobering assessment for the increasing number of clubs selected for celebrity investment by players who are yet to retire.
Luka Modric, a minority shareholder and co-owner at Swansea City, recently joined a list including former Celtic striker Moussa Dembele, who has bought a club who are 13th in the Lithuanian league via an investment group, while playing in Saudi Arabia.
Al Ittihad’s N’Golo Kante has Belgian club Royal Excelsior Virton, Al Nassr’s Sadio Mane owns French fourth-tier club Bourges Foot 18 and FC Basel’s fellow ex-Liverpool winger Xherdan Shaqiri recently became a minority shareholder in a Swiss third-tier team.
They’re all getting the relations in to help. Shaqiri is generally accompanied by his brother Erdin at his club, Rapperswil-Jona, which is based on the shores of Lake Zurich. Mane’s family always accompany him to Bourges.
Kante appointed four childhood friends to the board of directors of his club, none of whom is thought to have had no prior experience in the sport.
Luka Modric, a minority shareholder and co-owner at Swansea City, recently joined a list of celebrity investors
Former Liverpool wingers Sadio Mane (left) and Xherdan Shaqiri have both bought into clubs
One agent says player-investors may be motivated by corporate tax breaks. Another says: ‘Everyone wants their piece of the pie. It’s possible that these clubs are managed by people who don’t have the skills.’
This is the inconvenient truth for those craving Mbappe – or indeed Cristiano Ronaldo, whose express wish to enter club ownership has prompted unsubstantiated talk about him having designs on Valencia.
The reason why the US owners who’ve flooded into Europe in recent years are now winning so much silverware is because they are great operators, often accustomed to operating under spending caps in their own country.
‘That requires a lot of discipline, a rigorous grasp of the numbers, and a business plan that stretches several years into the future,’ the FT observed this week. Which didn’t sound much like Mbappe at Caen.
Mbappe’s mum now finds herself preparing for life in France’s semi-professional National Championship, intent on sacking a third manager and cutting budgets.
‘We’re not going to leave!’ she said, in a way that implied this was a good thing. The straightforward days of beating Zaragoza 3-2 at home – and losing narrowly on aggregate – seem long gone and the moral of the story of Mbappe’s car crash year at Caen is a simple one. When superstar footballers arrive with big cash and promises, fight them off, at all cost.
Ice hockey chiefs need to act
Ice hockey is feeling collective relief that no manslaughter case will be brought against the Sheffield player whose skate killed Nottingham Panthers’ Adam Johnson.
The legal precedent set by a manslaughter conviction would have had others thinking: ‘It could be me.’
Ice hockey is feeling collective relief that no manslaughter case will be brought against the Sheffield player whose skate killed Nottingham Panthers’ Adam Johnson (pictured)
So why, after the Sheffield coroner who examined Adam’s death called for neck guards to be made compulsory and expressed concerns about a similar tragedy, has Elite Ice Hockey, which runs the sport’s top UK league, not followed that course?
The league still makes the use of neck guards voluntary and a former senior detective tells me it risks a corporate manslaughter charge, were another fatality to occur. The coroner’s warning is in black and white.
Villa fans treated with contempt
Hard not to empathise with Aston Villa fans who have just been told, at two weeks’ notice, that their home match with Tottenham has been moved forward two days, to a Friday evening kick-off.
Not only because of flights, trains and hotels booked by Villa fans travelling from afar but because when Villa asked for a fixture change around their Champions League tie with Paris Saint-Germain, they were refused and then eliminated so narrowly.
Another United error
A brilliant afternoon, last Sunday, watching the Women’s Super League Manchester derby from Old Trafford’s East Stand.
Gazing out at the Sir Alex Ferguson and Sir Bobby Charlton stands and the hallowed pitch was confirmation for me that leaving the old place is absolute madness when United have such rank dysfunction and underperformance to tackle.
Grace Clinton heads in to make it 2-1 in last weekend’s WSL Manchester derby at Old Trafford
Nice one, Harry
My grandson went up to Old Trafford with his dad on the off-chance of a signature from one of his heroes, arriving to play Wolves.
He returned, euphoric, his shirt signed by Harry Maguire, who had steadfastly worked his way through the sea of young fans in a way which underlined what an outstanding individual he is.
New snooker world champion Zhao Xintong was party to another player fixing and placing illegal bets on games and suspended for 20 months until last September
I won’t cheer for snooker’s great new hope
On the 40th anniversary of Dennis Taylor, Steve Davis and the Black Ball final, and all that it represented, it was hard to feel much cheer for new champion Zhao Xintong, who was party to another player fixing and placing illegal bets on games and suspended for 20 months until last September.
That kind of stain takes some shifting.
