The National Union of Professional Footballers (UNFP) in France has strongly criticized Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) for excluding Kylian Mbappe from their pre-season tour to Asia.
This move comes amid an ongoing contract dispute between the 24-year-old forward and the club.
According to media reports, PSG has put up Mbappe for sale after relations between the player and the club turned sour last month.
Mbappe had previously stated that he would not renew his contract, which is set to expire at the end of the next season, allowing him to leave for free in June 2024.
Despite this, PSG President Nasser Al-Khelaifi has asserted that they will not allow Mbappe, the highest goalscorer in the French top-flight for the past five seasons, to leave the club without a transfer fee.
“These players —- all of them —- must enjoy the same working conditions as the rest of the professional workforce,” the UNFP, the main trade union for professional football players in France, said in a lengthy statement on Saturday.
“The UNFP feels it will be useful to remind managers that putting pressure on an employee —- via the deterioration of their working conditions, for example —- to force them to leave or accept what the employer wants constitutes moral harassment.
’The French law firmly condemns this sort of harassment.
“So, yes, the UNFP reserves the right to take civil and criminal action against any club that behaves in this way,” the statement said.
In the past 11 Ligue 1 seasons, PSG has emerged victorious in nine of them, showcasing their dominant domestic performance. However, their achievements in the UEFA Champions League have not been on par with their domestic success.
Despite significant investments in their squad, PSG has never managed to claim the prestigious Champions League trophy.
Now, the club is confronted with a challenging dilemma regarding Kylian Mbappe’s contract situation. If they allow him to reach the final year of his contract, they might struggle to recoup the substantial sum they invested in him back in 2017, which amounted to 180 million euros (equivalent to 200.2 million dollars) when they signed him from AS Monaco.
Mbappe, the talented forward, has been frequently linked with a potential move to Real Madrid, a club with a remarkable record of 14 European championship titles.
