On April 6, Kylian Mbappé, a Paris Saint Germain player, shared a message on his Instagram account in which he charged against the Parisian club for having used his image for next season's membership recruitment campaign without, according to his version, , they would have previously been informed of the objective of an interview that was carried out.
But, was Mbappé right to get angry because PSG used him almost as the only claim in the video to attract new partners? Experts in image rights and sports marketing provide EFE with the keys to understanding the player's crusade, with extensions also to the French team.
"On a theoretical level, the player is somewhat right, in the sense that he can consider that this use has affected his moral rights, that is, the right to decide which image of his is projected and what is done with it," he explains. to EFE Mandy Goyos, a specialist in the matter from the Cadarso office
In the minute and 16 seconds of the controversial clip, Mbappé is the predominant figure, the only one who speaks. The other two PSG stars are absent, the new world champion Leo Messi and Neymar, the most expensive footballer in history.
The Bondy player regretted this exploitation, in his opinion excessive, in a message posted on his Instagram account, in which he has some 100 million followers. "PSG is a great club and a great family, but it is not Kylian Saint-Germain", he complained in that message. For many, a paradoxical reaction, taking into account that he himself had demanded in his last and stratospheric renovation during the summer of 2022 to be the prow of the Qatari project.
Critics of Mbappé's attitude, including L'Equipe -which tends to flatter the player- blame him for having skipped the hierarchy between a company and its employee. What they are suggesting is that the normal thing might have been for PSG to have imposed a sanction for misconduct by making public a matter that could have been fixed internally.
Although in most cases the exploitation of the image rights of elite soccer players corresponds to the clubs, attention must be paid to the fine print, Goyos warns. "There is no regulation in itself, but there is fairly established jurisprudence on the assignment to third parties of the economic exploitation of image rights. The conditions and limits of the assignment -he stresses- must be specified in as much detail as possible, and also its purpose, which contributes to the interpretation of when the limits of the assignment are exceeded.
For the expert of the Cadarso cabinet
"In the video (to attract members) not all the stars of the team were present. In the end, the club is identified exclusively with Mbappé, and that is the key to the possible transfer of the limit of the transfer of their image rights. The video transmits the feeling that the player is the club itself. It would be necessary to see if the purpose of the assignment covered this type of exploitation or not", he maintains.
Mbappé's peculiar struggle has a history. Advised by the lawyer specializing in athletes' image rights Delphine Verheyden and by her parents, Wilfried and Fayza, the striker has made image rights a workhorse.
In 2022, he refused to participate in a publicity campaign for the team to pressure the French Football Federation (FFF) to renegotiate a new agreement that would give the players more room to decide. Mbappé did not want his image to be associated with brands related to sports betting houses or fast food, which were sponsors of the 1998 and 2018 world champion team.
That fight was won by the PSG footballer, after having convinced other heavyweights in the locker room, such as the then captain Hugo Lloris. The FFF agreed to sit down to negotiate another agreement. According to sports marketing expert Vincent Chaudel, Mbappé's strategy poses a risk for the FFF itself, whose budget is largely fed by sponsorships.
"If the sponsors do not have stars like Mbappé, they will pay less. And if they pay less, the FFF will have less money to invest in non-professional football," he warned in statements to EFE.
Mbappé's crusade is not against brands per se, Chaudel qualifies, who recalls that the French star lends his image to several of them, such as Nike (which has sponsored him since he was 15 years old), the EA Sports video game FIFA, the manufacturer of Oakley glasses or that of Hublot watches.
The Mbappé empire has numerous ramifications. He created his own association, "Inspired by KM", with the goal of empowering young people from the most disadvantaged neighborhoods, like where he himself grew up, who grew up in the city of Bondy, on the Parisian outskirts. And he published a graphic novel, "Je m'appelle Kylian" ("My name is Kylian"), in his own publishing house ("KM Éditions").
The diversification of its business even reaches the audiovisual sector. In mid-2022, he set up the production company Zebra Valley, which signed an agreement with the NBA, of which Mbappé is a fan, to create socially relevant content aimed at soccer and basketball fans.
New technologies are not left off their radar either. Following in the footsteps of his partner Leo Messi, he became an investor (and ambassador) of the French company Sorare, valued at 4,000 million euros and whose main activity is the sale of digital stickers over the Internet.
