a president shouldn’t say that

He couldn’t help it. Arrested on Wednesday June 14 in the aisles of the Viva Tech show, the Head of State said that he was going “try to push” for Mbappé to stay in Paris. Admittedly, it was a spontaneous response to a young PSG fan who called out to him. But a president shouldn’t say that. And especially not to do that: to intervene in the transfer of a football player, a little as if it were a threat of relocation weighing on a national treasure.

Especially since it’s not the first time. Two years ago, when Real Madrid was already turning around the young star, Emmanuel Macron picked up his phone. Mbappé recounted the exchange in the press: “He said to me, ‘I want you to stay. I don’t want you to leave now. You are so important to the country’. When the president tells you that, it matters.” Not sure it works a second time, even if Emmanuel Macron willingly displays his closeness to the player. Everyone remembers those images at the end of the lost World Cup final in Qatar. The head of state had stayed a long, very long time on the lawn comforting Mbappé. Two years earlier the Head of State had enrolled him in a contest of anecdotes with the youtubers Mac Fly and Carlito. In short, the president does tons of it.

Change of time

It’s not the first. Nicolas Sarkozy is a PSG subscriber from the start, always present in the stands of the Parc des Princes and often in the locker room, very close to the Qatari leaders. Football has always had a political dimension. Many heads of state have been concerned about this for decades. But Emmanuel Macron’s attitude illustrates a change of era.

We have entered a period where football stars like Mbappé have a more powerful global media impact than heads of state. In the past, major political events, election nights for example, gave rise to great moments of collective outpouring. Now, since 1998, these are the big football matches. And seeing a president make the transfer of a player a national affair is one more symptom of the desacralization of politicians, who hope to catch up with voters by running after a ball…