There are many voices predicting what the situation for football’s finances will be after we escape the current clutches of the coronavirus pandemic, from concerns over some clubs surviving, and others having to rethink their strategies, especially if the remainder of their league 2019/20 is cancelled and the revenue that comes with that lost. The latest is French MEP Daniel Cohn-Bendit, well known in his country and often outspoken, who has raised the alarm about the hottest talent in the country, Kylian Mbappé.

Covid-19 and Mbappé's astronomical fall in value

Cohn-Bendit has said that the PSG star’s value in the transfer market is going to be significantly less than it was just a month or two ago, before the full extent of this crisis was known.

“After the coronavirus crisis is over, he [Mbappé] will not be worth more than 35 or 40 million [euros] rather than 200.”

"And who will be able to buy him?” continued the politician in his column for Ouest France. “This crisis will clean up the irrationality of professional sports. It is as if there had been a nuclear attack and everything has to be rebuilt, but at other bases.

World records of the past | Paris Saint-Germain's French forward Kylian Mbappe and Brazilian forward Neymar. FRANCK FIFE (AFP)

“There will be de facto regulation and it will be necessary to go even further with a salary cap. It is a reorganisation that hits not only player salaries but also image rights and advertising. We have to break the system of agents, of those who do exorbitant business in football. I don't think players will be worse because they are paid less.

“In the future, for example, football television contracts will have to put a percentage to the Olympic sport and that for amateurs.”

Real Madrid had drawn out the roadmap to sign Mbappé in the summer of 2021, when the star had only one year of his contract left. By then, the situation will be much clearer. In and around the halls of the Madrid club are sighs of relief. ”What a financial disaster it would have been had we agreed to an astronomical transfer for Mbappé and then the economic disaster arrived after.”