It may have been a while since it was last mooted but the link between Kylian Mbappe and Liverpool has been made once more.
Over the past couple of years, whenever rumours of an Mbappe exit from Paris Saint-Germain emerge you can almost guarantee that the Reds will be mentioned as potential suitors soon after, however fanciful such a transfer may be.
The links between the French star and the Reds are long established, from Mbappe's admission that his mum's favourite team is Liverpool and Reds boss Jurgen Klopp's vocal admiration for the talents of the 24-year-old have seen Anfield mooted as a potential destination for some time now.
Those rumours were seemingly put to bed earlier in 2022 when Mbappe, who had been involved in some ridiculous game of cat and mouse with Real Madrid, committed his future to PSG. All it took was a €50m (£43.7m) annual salary, a signing on bonus of a reported €100m, total ownership of his image rights and the intervention of French president Emmanuel Macron. All very normal.
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Mbappe's previous deal at PSG had been due to expire in the summer of 2022 and after a lengthy PR strategy from both sides had been expected to sign for Real Madrid. The Spanish side had offered as much as €200m for his services with just months remaining on his deal, an offer PSG flatly refused.
Much to the chagrin of Real Madrid president Florentino Perez, a man keen to bring the era of the 'Galactico' back to the Spanish capital, Mbappe chose to remain in France.
But Mbappe and PSG are no longer in a happy marriage and talk of his exit remains dominant. The forward reportedly wants to leave Paris, but Nasser Al-Khelaifi, PSG chairman and chairman of the owners of the club, Qatar Sports Investments, is ready to play hardball with his club's star player, vowing earlier this week at the unveiling of Luis Enrique as PSG boss that it would be "impossible" for him to leave on a free transfer at the end of next season.
This new development has set pulses racing and it was claimed on Thursday by Spanish journalist Edu Aguirre of popular show El Chiringuito that Liverpool had made a bid of €200m for Mbappe. As with the previous attempts to link Liverpool with a move for the French international, it seems far fetched, not least as it appears almost set in stone that Real Madrid will try to be his next destination, something that the Spanish media would dearly love to see. Hamming up the potential transfer interest in a player by other clubs, when it might not be rooted in reality, wouldn't be beyond the realms of possibility.
With a number of major European clubs on the UEFA 'watchlist' when it comes to potential Financial Fair Play breaches, signing Mbappe is something completely off the table for some. Liverpool, with a large amount of headroom when it comes to FFP due to their more austere approach to transfer spend, are one of the clubs who, theoretically, could afford to extricate the Frenchman from the Parc des Princes. However, the theory and the reality are not the same.
The narrative around Liverpool owners Fenway Sports Group among some sections of the Reds fan base has been that they are far tighter with the purse strings that the owners at rival clubs. Player trading has long been used to help offset transfer spend while wages, while they have grown significantly under FSG's tenure, remain at around 60 to 65 per cent of revenue, well below the recommended UEFA limit of 70 per cent.
The Reds broke their transfer record with the signing of Darwin Nunez from Benfica last summer, a deal that could rise to as much as £85m. In order to land a player like Mbappe the fee required has been reported to be between £250m and £300m. That is world record breaking stuff, the kind of sums that have so grotesquely distorted the transfer market and contributed to the enormous gulf that now exists between the biggest clubs and the rest.
But say that FSG give that the green light and press on to the next phase, the small matter of his reported wages of around £800,000 per week - more than double what Mohamed Salah's new deal has been reported to be worth, would take things into the farcical. How would sums like that be squared with existing members, those wanting to renew and new signings? Amortised, the transfer cost over six years at £300m would stand at £50m, the annual sum that Liverpool get from their most lucrative guaranteed commercial deal, the front of shirt sponsorship from Standard Chartered.
But we'll carry on. That's been agreed. We're all there now. Oh, there is the not so insignificant matter of the fact that PSG, backed by the almost limitless wealth of Qatar Sports Investments, agreed to allow Mbappe 100 per cent control over his image rights. Mbappe's image rights issue reared its head last year with the French national side when he refused to endorse certain sponsors when on international duty.
The value of commercial deals for clubs like Liverpool is vast and part of that value is that companies get to use players on occasion for promotional activity. If Mbappe has the ability to simply refuse to endorse certain sponsorships then that then affects the potential value, especially if there is no value to be had in tapping into the most marketable player a team could have.
Mbappe's positioning as a Nike client has been mentioned, as has his friendship and respect for basketball icon, fellow Nike client and part FSG owner LeBron James. Third party sponsorship to smooth deals over is now well within the sights of UEFA, and while a simpatico relationship may get the two sides in the room it won't address the enormous financial elephant sitting in the corner of it.
Then there is the fact that Liverpool's transfer priorities don't really lie in the final third, they lie in midfield and defence. It is there where there will be targeted investment, and with Champions League football not on the agenda for this coming season, making smart and sensible recruitment decisions to aid improved performance in 2023/24 would be the best course of action, especially for a club where the ownership keep a close eye on the bottom line.
It's a nice idea, but for a plethora of reasons it is something that really isn't rooted in reality, not in Liverpool's reality anyway. But we already knew that.
