In its conflict with Kylian Mbappé, Paris Saint-Germain risks a “ban on recruiting”, warns a lawyer specializing in sports

Kylian Mbappé has contacted the LFP and the FFF to demand that PSG, which he left this summer for Real Madrid, pay him “unpaid” wages and bonuses totalling more than 55 million euros.

In its conflict with Kylian Mbappé, Paris Saint-Germain faces a “recruitment ban”warns Tatiana Vassine, a lawyer specializing in sports law, speaking to franceinfo on Tuesday, August 20. The Real Madrid striker has contacted French football authorities to recover salaries and bonuses “unpaid” from his former employer, PSG. He is demanding a little over 55 million euros gross in salaries for April, May and June, as well as bonuses.

franceinfo: What does Paris-Saint-Germain risk if it doesn’t pay?

Tatiana Vassine: The referral to the legal committee occurs in cases where there are disputes between clubs and players. It has a power that is quite powerful in regulatory terms since it has the capacity to be able to pronounce a certain number of sanctions. In cases where there is a default of payment by a French professional club towards a player and this default of payment is duly noted by decision of the legal committee, it can pronounce against this club a ban on recruiting any new player, and this until the situation is regularized.

This is one of the most powerful sanctions that the legal committee is likely to impose. There are also fines, there are reminders, there are also possibilities of pronouncing losses of one or more matches, points deductions, closed-door matches, etc. These are sanctions that therefore have a direct consequence and are considered to be more significant than a simple financial sanction.

Kylian Mbappé and his advisors went through the French Football Federation to alert UEFA. There too, could there be quite significant consequences for PSG?

Exactly. The UEFA procedure is interesting because it provides that clubs participating in UEFA competitions must subscribe to a license. It is a kind of certification that justifies that the participating clubs meet a certain number of conditions. And among these conditions, we find the obligation for the participating club not to have any arrears of salary or payment to the staff. This is Article 72 of the UEFA regulations on the granting of licenses to clubs and financial viability.

This is an article that is very clear on this, which provides that, from the moment there is an arrears of payment, the license can be refused to clubs that wish or that would be qualified, in any case on the sporting level, to participate in a UEFA competition. This is also an article that is quite dissuasive. Be careful, the procedure is interesting, but it can also justify means of contestation vis-à-vis the club and there are exceptions which also allow in this type of situation, to ensure that even if a player were to claim arrears of payment, the club could contest the validity of this claim and have a procedure which still allows it to benefit from its license and therefore to participate in competitions.

So it’s a real legal debate that will begin with procedures that represent a major issue for the club. But the bottom line will be: are the sums claimed by Kylian Mbappé owed by PSG or not? If so, financial sanctions will likely apply and we will certainly go crescendo with perhaps initially a procedure of warning, caution or requests for regularization. And if this is not the case, then sanctions that could be much heavier.

If there are convictions, how can PSG contest them in this case?

For the procedure before the LFP legal committee, we are dealing with a Franco-French issue, a labour law type issue. So from this point of view, the bodies that will naturally be competent will be the French bodies such as the industrial tribunal. For the UEFA procedure, we will have to analyse who makes the decision. Most likely, we will have a decision that will be made by the FFF, since it is the one that applies the regulations for granting licences to clubs on the French level. The FFF will transmit the content of its report to UEFA, which will decide.

Do we know the time limit PSG has to pay the amounts claimed by Kylian Mbappé? This type of dispute is not rare in any case.

Yes, this type of dispute occurs regularly in the sports sector, and even more so in the football sector. It is very common for clubs to not pay players’ salaries on time or at all. This is a real problem that players face, whether in France or abroad. As for the terms of resolving this type of dispute, it can ultimately go quite quickly since we have the benefit of a justice system that is different from state justice, which takes longer, with commissions that can be seized and procedures that can be put in place more quickly than what we would have in a common law court.

We have bodies that can be set up in a few weeks. Often, what is preferred at the level of these bodies is to have a warning with a reminder of the obligations first. From the moment the breach is noted, sanctions are incurred, so the club tends to regularize before being sanctioned. The club can also wait for the first hearing to see how the commission will position itself with regard to this dispute, and then in a second stage, if the commission considers that there is a breach, wait for its reminder and pay at that time. In this type of case, it will be necessary to wait for an official position from the legal commission to finally see what the club’s reaction will be. But it can happen quite quickly.

How complex is Kylian Mbappé’s case with PSG?

It will be necessary to determine whether the debts claimed by Kyllian Mbappé are due. In other words, are his claims well-founded? PSG will likely contest this demand.