Mbappe´s Madrid move ´a nail in football´s coffin´, says Bayern sporting director

Kylian Mbappe’s move to Real Madrid is “a nail in football’s coffin” and symptomatic of the transfer market approaching breaking point, believes Bayern Munich’s sporting director Max Eberl.

Mbappe finally sealed his long-awaited move to Madrid earlier this week, leaving Paris Saint-Germain as a free agent after seven years at the Parc des Princes.

The forward has signed a five-year contract with the European champions and will reportedly earn €15million (£12.7m) per year and receive a signing-on bonus of €150m (£127.7m).

Eberl believes that level of financial outlay cannot be sustained, predicting the tendency for top players to run their contracts down will kill the market.

“You can always become more of a money-grubbing person, but everyone who is a money-grubbing person will gradually become a nail in football’s coffin,” he told Suddeutsche Zeitung.

“If all the money goes out [of the market] at some point, there will be nothing left for us to do business with.

“We’re talking about hundreds of millions. That’s too much and at some point you get the feeling that it will burst.

“At some point it will be oversaturated and Saudi Arabia will come along. That doesn’t feel very good. The money is leaving the market. No club benefits from it.

“Players, families, agents, everyone benefits, but not the clubs. In the past, at least clubs profited. The money stayed in the cycle and that will become less and less now.”

9 – Real Madrid have won the Champions League for the ninth time in their history, out of nine finals played. European cup included, this is the 15th time Real have lifted the trophy (in 18 finals), more than twice as many as any other team (AC Milan 7). Unbeatable. pic.twitter.com/9D1DN6aL90

— OptaJean (@OptaJean) June 1, 2024

Mbappe scored a club-record 256 goals for PSG, including 42 in the Champions League.

Adding 108 assists for the perennial Ligue 1 victors, Mbappe’s 364 goal involvements rank as the most for PSG this century – ahead of Edinson Cavani (236) and Zlatan Ibrahimovic (210).

He also scored 44 times in 48 games for PSG in 2023-24, a tally only matched by Bayern star Harry Kane among players from Europe’s top five leagues.

Mbappe is currently preparing to lead tournament favourites France at Euro 2024, having scored 12 goals across Les Bleus’ last three major tournaments – the 2018 World Cup, Euro 2020 and the 2022 World Cup, with all of those strikes coming at the World Cups. Kane is also the only player to match that figure.